More than half of retirement savers are unsure of tax rules following the launch of pension freedoms, employee benefits consultancy Portus Consulting has said.
Its research found just 26% of retirement savers were aware they could take a quarter of their pension fund tax-free with the rest being potentially subject to tax at the investor's marginal rate.
Findings also showed that 53% of respondents were uncertain about the new tax rules, while 9% thought any cash taken out of a pension fund was subject to tax, 6% believed money could be withdrawn tax-free within five years and 5% mistakenly thought all pension funds were tax-free.
Savers aged 55 and over were better informed, but even among this group only 54% knew they could take a tax-free lump sum but were after that subject to tax, while 31% of this group did not know what the tax implications of this were.
Portus Consulting commercial director Steve Watson said that while the new freedoms over the use of pension funds had been widely welcomed "our research shows that more needs to be done to educate people about the changes, and employers should take a lead".
