Tag: pensions
A look at what IFP do for our clients…
This section of our quarterly newsletter will look at a specific case study and demonstrate how you can identify which of your clients we may be able to help, how we provide our services and the results of providing high quality independent professional financial advice. The Retiring Business Owner Case Study Mr Owner aged 57 and [...]
Read moreFinancial Planning and Divorce
No-one who is going through a divorce finds the process easy: it’s long, messy and almost always painful. Even if there are no children involved, divorce is a procedure that takes its toll on both sides: the acrimony, the paperwork – and the inevitable meetings with your solicitor. It’s understandable that many people involved in [...]
Read moreDifficult Choices – ISA or Pension Savings?
In the UK, we may be putting more savings into stocks and shares ISAs than into personal pensions. Reporting on savings trends in the 2010/2011 tax year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said savers put £14.3bn into personal pensions in that tax year, compared with £15.8bn into stocks and shares ISAs. This compares with [...]
Read moreTake advantage of the 50% Tax Band for Pension Tax Relief
In the Budget, the chancellor announced that the top rate of income tax, payable on earnings of £150,000 or more, would fall from 50% to 45% from April 2013. This cut means that tax relief on pension contributions for earners in that tax bracket will also fall to the same level. As the measure [...]
Read moreBeware of the dog – the importance of monitoring funds regularly
If you watch the money programmes on TV or read the financial pages of the newspapers, you might have come across the term ‘dog fund.’ What does the term mean? And why is it so important to the ordinary investor? Put simply, a ‘dog’ is a poorly performing investment fund. Let me explain in more [...]
Read moreProtected Rights – new possibilities from April 6th
Historically, many people chose to contract out of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme using their money purchase pension. Put simply, this meant that the money that would have gone into SERPS went into their personal pensions instead – effectively, they were swapping known benefits from the Government for unknown (but potentially greater) benefits from [...]
Read moreWork longer, live longer!
New statistics published in February 2012 by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), reveal that people are working longer than they used to. The average age at which people leave the labour market – a proxy for average age of retirement – rose from 63.8 years to 64.6 years for men and from 61.2 years [...]
Read moreSavers left short-changed by unfair annuities system
The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) and the Pensions Institute (PI) at Cass Business School published a joint report early in 2012, suggesting that around half a million people retiring each year are being short-changed by up to £1bn from their total future pension income, because overwhelming obstacles stop them getting the best deal [...]
Read moreAuto-enrolment opportunity to save is coming up
Now that the Government has announced a clear timetable for the roll-out of auto-enrolment, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) suggests that employer pension contributions could break the ‘savings stalemate’ for more than half of people. The opportunity to benefit from employer contributions remains the single biggest reason for people to stay ‘auto-enrolled’ in new [...]
Read moreFindings reveal ‘head-in-the-sand’ attitude towards pensions
Despite the recent strikes against cuts in public sector pensions, Aviva reports that most British people have a head-in-the-sand attitude to pensions. Aviva said that few people start “actively thinking” about pensions until they are 48 years old, and take another four years before they do anything about it. Behind the failure to start preparing [...]
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