Life could be about to get easier for the retired. The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) will turn its attention to pensioners in an attempt to unravel a raft of complicated tax laws relating to them.
The risk of directly investing in a single investment is that if the price drops in value, or the issuing company goes bust, you could lose money.
Whether your retirement is a long way off or just around the corner, it’s important to think about how much income you’re going to have. And as you approach retirement, you’ll also have to decide how you’d like to receive the money from any pensions you’ve been saving towards. The most popular way of securing an income for life is by converting your pension fund into an annuity.
The latest figures show the number of pensioners relying on financial assistance from family members has more than doubled to a quarter of a million since last year because of rising inflation.
At any one time it is estimated that between £15 – £20 billion is lost in the financial system. Some of it belongs to people who have died but the majority has just been forgotten. For those who think they’ve lost track of an account or funds there are many organisations that can help you track down and find these assets.
Salary sacrifice (sometimes known as ‘salary waiver’) in the context of retirement planning is a contractual arrangement whereby an employee gives up the right to receive part of their cash remuneration, usually in return for their employer’s agreement to provide some form of non-cash benefit. Salary sacrifice is a voluntary scheme so, even if your employer offers it, they cannot force you to take part.
Having the right mix of investments will enable you to plan to keep your savings ahead of any inflationary concerns you may have. Spreading risk and getting a good mix of assets is known as ‘diversification’. This is a relatively simple concept; it means spreading your capital across different investment vehicles rather than placing all your capital solely in one place.
While pensioners said they needed an average of £22,000 a year to live comfortably, their actual income averaged £15,800, according to a recent report by Prudential, the insurer. Almost two in five said they found living on their retirement income harder than they had expected.
Retirement may seem a long way off but are you saving enough now for a comfortable retirement in the future? A general rule of thumb suggests that you should aim for a retirement income of two-thirds of the amount you would expect to be earning at the end of your career.
According to the Investment Management Association (IMA), net retail sales of funds of funds (an investment strategy of holding a portfolio of other investment funds rather than investing directly in shares, bonds or other securities) totalled £3.8bn for the first six months of the year, the highest first half on record.