Pensions serve as essential instruments in wealth creation and safeguarding your financial stability in the future and retirement stages. Despite this, they are perhaps the most commonly misinterpreted financial merchandise available. The advantages of pensions are immense and numerous, so if you’re not utilising them, you’re losing out significantly. This article aims to rectify that by providing you with an exhaustive beginner’s guide on pensions.
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Decoding UK Pensions
Initially, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tom Morgan, a UK-based financial consultant and planner. Welcome to our Finance Web Content. If this is your initial visit, remember that the topic of pensions is extensive. This article intends to serve as a fundamental guide and will not go in-depth into every facet. Here is a snapshot of the information you will gather by the time you reach the end of this article.
Different Types of Pensions
In the UK, you will encounter a variety of pension products that can be classified into two main categories. Firstly, workplace pensions provided by your employer and, secondly, personal pensions that you arrange for yourself.
Workplace Pensions
These can be further divided into two primary types; the first being defined benefit. As suggested by the name, the benefits you will receive from these schemes are determined by the scheme’s rules. In other words, it’s a promise of a guaranteed future income for you. The second type of workplace pension is the defined contribution. These plans, contrary to defined benefits, don’t offer a promised or guaranteed benefit at the end. Instead, the total amount you will receive from these is unknown at the outset. Both of these pensions are commonplace, and more than likely, what you’ll be involved in as it is now obligatory for employers to offer a pension scheme for their employees, though employees can opt out if they desire. This concept is known as Auto-enrollment, which we’ll explore in more depth shortly.
Personal Pensions
These pensions are always defined distribution. Your money goes in, gets invested over time, and how much accumulates in the pot is entirely up to the investment performance. It is important to note that there are different types of personal pensions all classifying as defined contribution personal pensions.
Employer Contributions and Tax Relief
As a participant of your workplace pension scheme, it’s very probable that you’ll benefit from employer contributions. Most schemes will match your contribution to a certain point – this is free money available for you to put into the pension savings. What’s more, the government gives you a significant boost by topping up your pension contributions as tax relief to motivate you to save for your retirement. This tax relief principle is applicable to both workplace and personal pensions that you’ve arranged yourself.
Auto-enrollment
In 2012, there was a change in rules that all employers, both big and small, are mandated to start contributing to pensions for their employees. The overall contributions to the pension scheme should be at least 8% of your qualifying earnings. To prevent extremely generous contributions, there exist annual allowances limiting the amount you can put into pensions each tax year because of how tax advantageous they are.
Growing Your Pension
Pension growth depends largely on the type of pension. With a defined benefit pension, your potent pension accrual increases every year you are a member of the scheme. However, with defined contribution pensions, the growth of your pot hinges on how much is invested and the performance of the investments.
Retirement
When it comes to extracting your money from these schemes, the methods differ vastly. With a defined benefit scheme, you’ll receive guaranteed income from retirement age onwards. However, with a defined contribution scheme, 25% of the pot is available as a tax-free lump sum, and with the remaining 75%, several options exist, such as buying an annuity or income drawdown.
Taxation and Death Benefits
Much like employment income, your pension income is also subjected to income tax. Also, upon death, there will likely be a spouses or dependents pension attached to your account with a defined contribution scheme. These features make pensions very favourable, even over Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs). Trust me, even if you have to pay some tax on the way out, you’ll benefit substantially from free money in the previous years.
Last but not least, keep in mind that pensions are just one component of a successful retirement plan. Another great wealth building instrument is a stocks and shares Individual Savings Account (ISA). Combine a pension plan with one of these for a potent set of tools to fund a successful retirement. So don’t hesitate any more, take control of your retirement plan. My name is Tom Morgan, from our Finance Web Content. If you found this article useful, please consider sharing it, and feel free to leave a comment below with any questions.
