aceastwood

I have started taking periodic drawdowns from my SIPP. It has been postulated both on this and other forums that this process might allow the 25% tax free portion to be untaxed by the IRS. I am not going to be the trailblazer who gets taken to court by the IRS, but if I at least take periodic drawdowns, I might be able to submit amended tax returns in future if the tax-free portion is ever determined to be tax-free in the US also.

However, the drawdown process is incredibly painful, and I am wondering if anyone has a better experience with other providers. I am with Aviva, and here is the process:

- call them and spend 15 minutes on hold

- go through a 15 - 20 minute phone call where they ask a whole bunch of questions that are identical to the ones they asked the previous time (and the time before), such as "have you taken professional advice?", "Have you been to the pensionwise website?" "do you realize you might end up eating dirt if you run out of pension?".

- wait up to 10 business days to receive a quotation as to what the drawdown will be, plus half a dozen other documents about drawdowns. At least they will send this by email. They do not allow any choice as to which funds are sold to create the drawdown - it is proportional across the funds in my plan.

- print proposal, sign it, mail back to the UK. wait a week for the mail to get to them.

- a few days later Aviva will deposit the money in my UK bank account

- transfer to the US (I use XE).

The best I have achieved is getting my money in 3 weeks, and it takes about an hour of my time. I am currently over 3 weeks into an attempted drawdown and the money is not yet in my UK bank account.

What I would like is to be able to login securely to my account. Choose a drawdown option. Choose the funds to sell. "Agree" to the warnings and caveats they pop-up. Then the money is deposited into my bank account in 2 - 3 days, or better.

Does anyone have experiences closer to what I want?

tbooth

I do pension drawdown with Scottish Widows, but I have an arrangement whereby it's an agreed amount every quarter, which just turns up automatically in my UK bank account, for me to bring over at my leisure when the exchange rate is less bad. However, this arrangement does predate the pension reforms - I'm not quite sure if that will still be the same when I decide to draw on some of my other pensions, so I'd be interested in other experiences as well.

aceastwood

You have made me wonder if I have used the right terminology. What I am doing was not available until the recent pension reforms.

nun

The administrative pain of drawdown seems to vary with your pension company. The implementation and the recent pension liberalization is vary variable. I would write to Aviva and see if you can set up a regular automatic drawdown......sort of a standing order.