I want to withdraw £28k from my pension – will I be hit by tax ‘recycling’ rules?

In our weekly series, readers can email in with any question about retirement and pension savings to be answered by our experts. If you have a question, email us at money@inews.co.uk.

Question: I’m planning on withdrawing about £28,000 from my SIPP around January 2026 but don’t want to fall foul of HMRC’s tax recycling rules with my pension contributions during this tax year. I think I get the idea of not increasing my cumulative contributions (triggering tax relief) “significantly” (30 per cent more than would be expected) over five years (so in my case from 2023/24 to 2027/28). But what I’m not sure about is exactly which year’s past contributions are considered to be “expected”.

Answer: Pensions are an extremely tax-advantageous way of saving for your retirement. You get