Important revisions of the official Revenue guidance on UK pensions legislation and practice have been announced. The PSO has published a new edition of Practice Notes IR 12 (2001) in conjunction with Updates Nos. 90-91.

Update No. 90 summarises the changes, which are highlighted in turquoise on the website version. In particular, PNs have been revised to reflect tax approval practice for:

• annuity purchase and income drawdown for money purchase occupational pension schemes and buy-out contracts ( see especially new Appendix XII)
• flexible use of AVCs (Appendix XII)
• pension sharing on divorce (changes everywhere, but see especially new Part 6A and new Appendix XIII)
• "enhancing" the role of the pensioneer trustee (Part 20).

The semi-detached Update No. 91 is a short 3-para one announcing the death of the Simplified Defined Contribution Scheme (no new approvals from 1 April). Existing approved SDCSs will be unaffected. This announcement is unsurprising, as although about 1,000 SDCSs have been approved since launch in February 1988, only 10 new schemes have been set up in the last 3 years. The Revenue believes the new option to convert to Chapter IV approval will be attractive to many existing SDCSs.

At the same time and for good measure, Personal Pension Scheme administrators have been provided with yet another raft of amendments to the PP Guidance Notes IR76, in Update No. 89. The changes have been incorporated into the website version of IR76 , downloadable as a 1.4 Mb .pdf file.

These changes, described refreshingly as "to clarify and in some cases rectify the guidance", follow earlier changes to the original September 2000 edition, announced on 18 December 2000 with Update No. 81. On the website for the most part the changes are highlighted in turquoise, as usual; however, possibly the most important new material, a completely rewritten Part 23, is not. This covers the new conversion regulations. The Update draws particular attention to para 23.13 [should say 23.12], which disallows partial conversion to a stakeholder scheme.

Footnote: Goodbye PSO, hello IRSPSS!