Tax on Pension Lump Sum

[ianb63]

Hi
I have 4 pension pots and I am looking at cashing in 2 of them as they are small amounts...1 of 4,000 and the other 8,000. The remaining 2 which I don't want to touch are worth 140,000 combined. I understand that I can take 25% tax free with tax paid on the remainder.
What I would like to know Is the tax free amount applied on the total of my 4 pots which would mean I wouldn't pay tax on the 12k or do I pay tax on the 4k & 8k. Hope you can help.
Many thanks
Ian

[cliffordpope]

Rules may have changed of course, but when I was in your position a few years ago I could only take 25% of each pot individually - it wasn't aggregated notionally for tax purposes. So I moved my two smallest pots into the large one, and then could take 25% of the combined pot. If that figure is larger than you wish to draw, I believe you can take a proportion of the 25% and take the remainder later.