ABSTRACT
The concept of personal pensions was introduced by the Social Security Act 1986 and the Finance (No 2) Act 1987. They replaced retirement annuity contracts and were a new form of pension contract for the self-employed and those not in pensionable employment. They were introduced following the government White Paper (December 1985, Cmd 9691) and Green Paper (1985, Cmd 9518) and their objective was to reduce the cost of SERPS to the government (see Chapter 7). The Inland Revenue’s requirements for approval of personal pensions are now found in ss 630 to 653 of the ICTA 1988 and guidance to practitioners on the interpretation of these requirements is provided in personal pension schemes (Inland Revenue Guidance Notes IR 76 (1991)). The two significant features of personal pensions are: 1 They are fully portable and capable of accepting and receiving transfer
payments to and from occupational and other forms of personal pensions.
