I am contributing to a private pension plan, and intend to do so for a few years.
I read that once you access pension funds you cannot continue to get tax relief on contributions.
I have a tiny amount in the NHS pension scheme, and have been invited to start drawing it at age 60.
Will this trigger the non-availability of the tax relief? I suspect it will do so.
Not true.
It's only if you've taken flexible access from a money purchase scheme that you're then restricted in how much you can still pay into a personal pension, as your maximum annual allowance then is capped at £10,000. Flexible access means you've taken out more than the 25% of the fund as a tax free cash sum.
If you access a defined benefit (final salary) scheme such as the NHS scheme, then the above is irrelevant as you can still pay in an amount equal to your income up to a maximum of the £60,000 annual allowance to your personal pension and still get full tax relief.
Be aware though there are restrictions on recycling any tax free cash taken from a final salary scheme back into a personal pension. In simple terms, if you get some tax free cash from the NHS scheme, you can't increase your personal contributions by more than 30%, and you can't put more than 30% of the tax free cash back into a pension (if you hadn't already been paying into a pension). Not applicable though if the NHS tax free cash is less than £7,500.
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/pensions-tax-manual/ptm133800