I started to take my BBC pension a few years ago. I took no tax free cash. At commencement, I received a notification of what % of my lifetime allowance this had used up. So far, so good.

In my most recent P60 letter however, I've now been told my pension also counts towards the total Lump Sum Allowance I can take, which is the total amount of tax free cash I can take from my various DB/DC schemes. In fact, it takes up a fair chunk of it.

I queried this with the pension department as I thought it must be a mistake, since I didn't take any tax free cash, but they said no, taking a final salary pension in this way does indeed now use up your tax fee allowance, even if no tax free cash was taken. Apparently the rules changed last year?  The guy I spoke to said quite a few people had callled to query this.

Has anyone else experienced this? Or better still, can you explain it?!