You've confused me on this bit
Using what ? You were talking mortgages .. Are you saying you pay more tax on your normal income tax when you release your 25% lump ?
I was talking about people using their lump sum to pay of a remaining mortgage balance, something which many people do in order to lower their monthly outgoing to facilitate a smaller retirement income.
You have a tax free allowance as 1257L, which means you can earn £12570 a year before paying tax, which works out as £1047.50 a month.
I doubt most people can live on that, so you want to take more money a month from your pension than that, but anything more is taxable at 20%
Your lump sum is tax free, so if you have £200,000 in a pension pot, you can take £50,000 tax free in any way you like.
The problem is that this represents all of your tax free money you can take from your pension.
You could take your £50k and walk off into the sunset and spend it on what you wish, or you could take small amounts.
So, in my example you could either
Take £50k lump sum, pay off the mortgage and withdraw a pension or £2000 a month and be paying £200 a month in tax OR
Leave the 50k, carry on paying the mortgage monthly, take a pension of £2000 but pay no tax for 4 1/2 years as you would take £1040 a month tax free from your allowance and £960 from your £50k, which would last for 4 1/2 years.
It depends whether or not you can live on your retirement income and continue to pay your mortgage.