It is a common mistake to think that a business can only have its banking facilities with one Bank.  Your business can have as many accounts with as many different banks as you like.  You need to decide what the cash in your business is to be used for before deciding on which type, or combination of types,  is going to work best for your business.

Santander are currently offering up to 2% grossbut this is subject to many terms and conditions that could make it not so attractive.

This is where our expertise comes into play and why you should be talking to us now so that you can make sure your business cash deposits are working for you.

 What are the benefits?

Although the company pays the premiums, they are not normally assessable to income tax on the employee as a benefit in kind. This can be a significant saving, particularly for a higher rate taxpayer.

Unlike a registered group scheme, the benefit will not form part of the employee’s annual or lifetime pension allowance.

These payments may be treated as an allowable expense for the employer in calculating their tax liability, as long as the local inspector of taxes is satisfied they qualify under the ‘wholly and exclusively’ rules.

 In most cases the benefits are paid free of inheritance tax, provided the benefits are payable through a discretionary trust.

 Who are relevant life policies suitable for?

 Small businesses that do not have enough eligible employees to warrant a group life scheme.

 High-earning employees or directors who have substantial pension funds and do not want their benefits to form part of their lifetime allowance.

 They are not suitable for the self-employed or equity partners, although their employed staff could be covered.

 Are there any limits to the cover I have?

 The legislation does have some limits to qualify for the tax concessions, and to ensure these are met we make sure that:

 The cover must be paid in a single lump sum before the age of 75.

 Only death benefits can be provided.

 Benefits must be paid through a discretionary trust.

 Beneficiaries are normally restricted to family members and dependants

Too see how much you could benefit from this call us on 0845 0179 578 to discuss your circumstances further.

Well, quite often, financial adviser firms like mine will offer new clients a free initial meeting. This allows you to meet with your potential adviser to see if you could enjoy a long term advisory relationship with them.   The meeting will also allow the adviser to understand what your financial goals and objectives are along with a summary of your current finanical position.

During this initial meeting there is lot of information for you to take on board as you find out about the firm, it’s services, what the services cost, the adviser experience, qualifications and so on. You should also ask them what their personal financial plans look like.  Is it a “one size fits all” or is it bespoke to your own circumstances.  Afterall, this could be the most important piece of work you have ever paid to be done. 

Here’s what ours look like for a typical family that you may have heard of before.

Homer & Marge Financial Plan

Our costs for preparing your initial report start from £500 depending  upon the complexity of your current financial circumstances so please contact us if you would like an accurate estimate andwould like to book your free initial consultation.

The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the seven major banks and a building society, which had challenged High Court and Court of Appeal decisions that the charges were unfair and should be subject to regulation by the Office of Fair Trading.

More follows….

One of the benefits of this is that a SSAS scheme can loan back money to the company. This is attractive for the company and the pension fund as the pension fund can release cash on which it was probably getting very little interest into a secure loan, as according to HMRC rules, the loan has to be secured on an asset, at typically a couple of percentage points above base, which is probably much cheaper than any bank funding in today’s market.

a SSAS scheme can loan back money to the company.

Up to 50% of the value of the scheme can be lent to the sponsoring company and the scheme has to charge a minimum of 1% above base. The pension scheme would also need a first charge on an asset for the value of the loan plus interest, though this does not need to be a company asset.

The length of the loan cannot be longer than five years and it cannot be interest free. Assets purchased have to be acceptable assets, but can be commercial property or intellectual property.

Also, loans from the pension fund can be used to buy both physical and intellectual property. With intellectual property, such as a trademark, there will be recurring royalty fees and these can then be paid into the pension fund tax free. for instance, one of our pharmaceutical client companies recently used 50% of the value of its SSAS fund to buy the company’s intellectual property and then the royalty payments were paid back tax free into the scheme.

Over and above providing funding, SSAS funds have one further benefit – they can be converted into a scheme pension, which means at age 75, the company owner does not face the possibility of a potential 80% tax charge as can happen with some self invested pension schemes. A consequence many business owners would be more than happy to avoid.

The government has decided to abolish contracting out of the State Second Pension (S2P) through money purchase pension schemes. This is likely to happen from 6 April 2012, but it could be later.

Most money purchase pension annual statements contain a Statutory Money Purchase Illustration (SMPI). By law, from 1 September 2009, these will have to assume that protected rights contributions will stop from no later than 2012.

What this means for our customers

For contracted-out planholders we’ll now assume no more rebates will be payable after 5 April 2012, which may result in lower values for their SMPI retirement fund values and pension in their annual statement compared to previous years’ statements.

This will be a more realistic projection of the future benefits from their policy, and although the values may reduce, it has to be remembered that their overall benefits at retirement could include S2P benefits from the government.

The State Pension is the foundation block of your retirement plans.  Whether it forms the majority or minority of potential retirement income it is still valuable.  It can vary quite significantly based on your level of earnings and your employment status (employed, self employed, not employed etc).  I’ve seen State Pensions for this year vary from £91 per week to £164 per week.

Also, you may have noticed a lot of press about State Pensions and extending the retirement age from when you can draw your pension.  This bad news is offset by the return of the link between the State Pension yearly increases and earnings increases.

If you would like to find out the details of your own State Pension then you can request a forecast online here for free.  It will tell you what you have built up so far, when you forecasted State Pension age is and how many more years of contributiong you need to do in order to get the maximum basic pension is.  It will also confirm if you have any entitlement to The Graduated Pension Scheme, SERPS or the more newer State Second Pension (S2P).  It’s only 4 pages long and iit is something you should read well before you plan to retire. 

If you would like any advice on State pensions or your retirement planning then please get it touch.

We are experiencing an increased amount of enquiries from clients and prospective clients who are able to access their pension funds now but won’t be able to do so after April 2010.  They are looking at this for many reasons such as early retirement, loss of employment income, home refurbushments and starting up businesses.  Are you looking to release the tax free cash from you pension fund?  Are you affected by the age increase?

We can advise you on all the different ways you can receive benefits such as an annuity, open market option, phased retirement, income drawdown, 3rd way annuity, with profit annuity etc.  Contact us now for more information and to book your free initial consultation. голова болит секс голова болит секс голова болит секс голова болит секс голова болит секс

We undertook a study recently to see the merit in clients paying a monthly fee for our advice rather than us earn commission when we sell a financial product such as a personal pension. We looked at different types of clients (age, sex, earnings, wealth) and found that just on cost it was mainly beneficial for clients to pay a monthly fee.

Take an average couple who are both 40.  They have life cover of £250k costing £42.28 per month, save £200 per month into a pension which is projecting a fund of £140k at age 65 and they save £100 per month into an ISA.

If they were a fee paying client of ours and we set up identical products the life cover would cost £31.86 per month, the pension fund would be projecting a value of £150k at retirement and they would not suffer an initial cost of 5.25% on every ISA contribution they made.  By the age of 65, purely on cost they would have saved £14,701 in charges against a fee of say £30 per month.  A net saving of over £5000.00

This doesn’t even take into account the ad hoc phone support we provide, the annual review we carry out with our fee paying client to try to improve fund performance, maximising all  cash saving returns, improving their mortgage rate, investing their baby’s Child Trust Fund voucher from the government and genral financial guidance on meeting their lifestyle goals.

We aim to make you money, save you money and save you time and I think the above example demonstrates how we can save you money.  Call us now to arrange a consultation to see how much we could save you.

The Pensions Act 2008 (Abolition of Safeguarded Rights) (Consequential) Order 2009 (SI 2009/598) removes references in pensions secondary legislation to safeguarded rights – eleven SIs in total are modified. Safeguarded rights arise when a member’s rights in an occupational or personal pension scheme which is contracted-out of the state second pension are shared on divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership. PA 2008 s.100 and the related repeals in Schedule 11 Part 2 abolish safeguarded rights altogether with effect from 6 April 2009. From that date, shared rights that derive from contracted-out rights will be treated in the same way as other shared rights.

And the best news is that if you are a policy holder who owned a Safeguarded Rights fund or were about to receive such a pension fund through your divorce then you are now able to take 25% of the fund as a tax free cash lump sum.  Thi sis subject to the normal rules surrounding all pension such has a earliest retirement age of 50.

Call me now if you want to discuss your Safeguarded RIghts in more detail.