Personal Pension

[slinxy]

After hearing people losing £100,000+ on pension with the maxwell thing, I never looked into it, apart from bare minimum

I'd be mad as hell if I paid say £250+ a month, every month for decades only for some slimeball to run off with it.

Regardless, three people I know lost around £100,000 each.

Well I'm on benefits now so not a big deal. and tbh wouldn't want to continue working for that company anyway, plus on crap pay low hours so portion of money going out wasn't really an option

Dude this equates to someone saying “I’ll never drive a car like that!” Then saying that they can’t even drive.

Company pensions are much better protected now a days, as they can no longer be managed by the same company that you are working for, plus there are government insurances.. if it hits the fan, they will step in; like what happen in the maxwell case.

In the maxwell case, most people got at least half of their pension pot back. So those people you know who have lost £100,000 most of have over £200,000 in their pension pots in the 80s. The average pension pot for the uk for someone retiring now is around 120,000.

 

[hornetstinger]

Dude this equates to someone saying “I’ll never drive a car like that!” Then saying that they can’t even drive.

Company pensions are much better protected now a days, as they can no longer be managed by the same company that you are working for, plus there are government insurances.. if it hits the fan, they will step in; like what happen in the maxwell case.

In the maxwell case, most people got at least half of their pension pot back. So those people you know who have lost £100,000 most of have over £200,000 in their pension pots in the 80s. The average pension pot for the uk for someone retiring now is around 120,000.

I wouldn't trusted the companies that I worked with, bunch of criminals. Last one just going through the courts with tax fraud and non payment lol.

No worries now

 

[Tram]

I go with sipps, for many reasons, i'd avoid ISAs for one reason, if you become unemployed you will need to eat away at your ISA before you can get access to welfare, with a SIPP you dont and you benefit from getting back your income tax, if your employer can pay directing into your sipp you get NI savings, SIPPS are protect from a few other things i.e. protected if you apply for bankruptcy, ISAs are not, I see it like a protected ISA in a way. in the long run, you gain even if you pay tax when you extract, but this also depends on how much you take out. I think SIPPs are magical tax/life protective saving products, used wisely over 20 to 30 or 40 years you could hit £1 million in savings. Theres a lot you can do with a SIPP and I mean a lot.
I also advise to open a few SIPPSs with different companies and are not linked to spread your money, this is more to do with access to the SIPPs if company goes out of bussiness you dont want to wait years once the FSA to deal with it, this will give access your other SIPP accounts. Also in theory there are few other things you can do but you need to investigate that yourself, I found this out by accident. It was something to do with working upto 20 hours a week and earning less than 40k a year and putting everything into it, but the rules were too strict and every year I had to argue with them, and this is why I think it is the most amazing savings product ever given to people.

 

[bainbridge]

When saving for retirement a pension is the best product IMO, but it isn't completely risk free.

All that money mounting up might become irresistible for a cash strapped government.

 

[Tram]

When saving for retirement a pension is the best product IMO, but it isn't completely risk free.

All that money mounting up might become irresistible for a cash strapped government.

But with everything else you are taking a risk.even though Isa is good unfortunately most people would have to work. If you ever needed to claim benefits you would need to go through your savings, but you can't spend you savings at the rate equal to your spending when you were working, if you do it is called deprevation of capital or something like that.
The SIPP protects you from this you can still retain your savings.

 

[EvilRob]

But with everything else you are taking a risk.even though Isa is good unfortunately most people would have to work. If you ever needed to claim benefits you would need to go through your savings, but you can't spend you savings at the rate equal to your spending when you were working, if you do it is called deprevation of capital or something like that.
The SIPP protects you from this you can still retain your savings.

Not buying the "don't have any liquid assets just in case you go on benefits" strategy. If you want to retire before you can access your SIPP, it doesn't work. Among other reasons.

 

[Tram]

Not buying the "don't have any liquid assets just in case you go on benefits" strategy. If you want to retire before you can access your SIPP, it doesn't work. Among other reasons.

Just giving an example, like bankruptcy or getting sued.

 

[bainbridge]

But with everything else you are taking a risk.even though Isa is good unfortunately most people would have to work. If you ever needed to claim benefits you would need to go through your savings, but you can't spend you savings at the rate equal to your spending when you were working, if you do it is called deprevation of capital or something like that.
The SIPP protects you from this you can still retain your savings.

That's one way of looking at it I suppose.

 

[doggles]

Hi OP

If youre an employee, your employer legally has to offer you a workplace pension scheme and also contribute to it (free money). Workplace schemes tend to have low costs compared to a.m non workplace scheme

If you aren't an employee, (self employed) a personal pension is just a tax wrapper that gives you some benefits to save into in (tax incentives - depending on your marginal.rate of tax) with restrictions on when you can draw 55 now, increasing to 57 in a few years

Unless.you know what youre doing with stock picking, youre best to invest into a fund via an investment platform via an ifa, or get advice from a highstreet bank. Most offer advice on pensions and would have in-house funds they can offer based on your attitude to risk.

Normally ifas will charge an ongoing advice fee a % of the fund value each year alongside the fund and platform cost. A high street bank normally doesn't charge an ongoing fee. Just a platform fee and a fund cost. Both would charge an initial advice cost, varying from.a.few hundred to several thousand.

As someone else has noted you could put money into an investment isa instead. Again, its just a tax wrapper,

Both a pension and an isa will grow free of income, capital gains and dividend tax.

A pension is taxed as income when you draw on it(apart from your 25% tax free cash) however you get the tax credit for paying money into it.

An isa you won't get taxed when you draw it, but won't get the tax kicker at the outset, or have the age timescale on when you can draw on it.

You can invest in the same funds available on the market via both pension and isa.

 

[D.P.]

When saving for retirement a pension is the best product IMO, but it isn't completely risk free.

All that money mounting up might become irresistible for a cash strapped government.

By that logic, so is any money in your UK bank account. So your options are to hide under your bes (massive risk), or off-shore bank account (expensive)

 

[bainbridge]

No, a bank account and a pension are very different financial products.

 

[D.P.]

No, a bank account and a pension are very different financial products.

For purposes of taxation. If a government wants to make a money grab then your bank account is a much easier target.

 

[doggles]

For purposes of taxation. If a government wants to make a money grab then your bank account is a much easier target.

They already tax the money in your bank account. Any interest you earn, after various allowances such as savings rate, starting rate and personal allowances is taxed.

Also regarding taxation on pension..that's easy enough to do

The legacy of Gordon's tax grab

Heather Connon reports on how the Chancellor's decision to cancel tax credits has impacted on pension funds.

www.theguardian.com