Posted by A Palmer on 13 November 2000 at 19:09:49:
THIS IS TGO THE PENSIONS SERVICES MANAGER
Dear Sir,
When IBM announced the C plan, it actively encouraged staff to switch from the N plan (many people remember the posters showing a C plan retiree in a yacht and an N plan one in a rowing boat). I am not at all sure that the end result was anything like as good as staying in the N plan and buying 4% of AVC in all cases. One factor that impacted my pension is the cap that was introduced, several months after C plan signing date, apparently in response to a, then new, government limit on the percentage pension allowed at early (around 50) ages. This cut about 4 years worth of value off the pension of those of us who joined before the C plan at age 21 and then took their pension in their mid 50s.
I have never seen a satisfactory answer to the question " why did those responsible not lift the cap once the government relaxed its rules -which it did some years ago?" Please ask the directors to review this matter and, if agreed, correct the situation for those of us in receipt of an affected C plan pension.
If schedules mean that a formal reply will take more than a month, please let me have a date for a reply.
Yours faithfully,
Alan Palmer (069590)