From understanding pension tax to finding out what would happen to your pension if you die in service, the stories are full of pension’s knowledge and have something useful for everyone.

Read nearly 300 times combined, our top articles for this year provide a handy recap of some of the most important pension topics and could help you kick off the New Year with a better grasp of your pension and more confidence in your financial know how.

1. A simple guide on the basics of pension tax for this tax year

Our most popular article for this year shines a light on a topic that many members consider complex and confusing – pension tax.

The article offers an easy-to-understand explanation of how tax relief works and an overview of the tax allowances - limits on the amount of pension savings that will benefit from tax relief each tax year and over your lifetime, so check it out.

Now is the perfect time to get to grips with pension tax and how to make the most of it before the current tax year (2022/23) comes to an end on 5 April 2023.

2. Future increase to the Normal Minimum Pension Age

Our second best article of the year provides an overview of the proposed increase to the Normal Minimum Pension Age (NMPA). NMPA is the earliest age at which most pension savers can access their pensions without having to pay a tax charge - unless they are retiring due to ill health.

The NMPA was increased from age 55 to 57 under the Finance Act 2022, which received Royal Assent earlier this year. The increase will take effect from 6 April 2028.

Members of the BTPFSF aren’t affected by the increase.

Read the article to find out more about on the topic.

3. What happens to your pension when you die?

Closely behind is our Death and you pension article. It provides useful information about the death benefits that may be paid out to people or causes that are close to your heart when you’ve gone. There are a few factors that may have a direct impact on the type of benefits that can be claimed following your death and the people who can claim them:

• which category of the Fund you are a member of
• the options you select
• whether you’re retired or still working when you die

Your Member Guide will have more specific details of your own death benefits. If you’re logged in to your myFund account, you will find your Member Guide in your home page under ‘My library’.

4. Who gets the new State Pension, how you can I apply, and how it all works?

The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) introduced some handy, new online guides which explain all you need to know about the new State Pension in January this year.

We wrote about this on our website and the article became amongst the most read pieces of content for this year.

The State Pension rose by 3.1% in April of this year and the recent Autumn Budget confirmed there’s another 10.1% rise coming in next April. 

5. The Spring Statement and how it affects pension savers

The fifth most read article for this year outlines the pension cornerstones of the Spring Statement delivered by (then) Chancellor Rishi Sunak on 23 March. There’s little surprise this article proved popular as we know that Fund members are interested in pension policy news about changes and developments, and what they mean to them.

As expected, the announcements from the (then) Chancellor Sunak aimed to soften the impact of the cost-of-living crisis and combat increasing high levels of inflation. There were no new announcements directly relating to pension scheme benefits. However, an increase to the National Insurance threshold was announced – it jumped from £9,880 to £12,570 from July. It was also announced that the basic rate of income tax will be reduced from 20% to 19% before the end of the Parliament in 2024.

You should keep in mind the political and economic upheaval that occurred later in the year when reading the original update on the Spring Statement.