Seek the winners as the world cleans up

Bozena Jankowska, manager of Allianz RCM Global EcoTrends Fund and Mark Hoskin of Holden & Partners, held a live webchat on Friday 4th of December 09, discussing climate change and investment.

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Pensions

Pensions are not investments in themselves, but a tax tool with which to make investments. They have tax advantages over investing personally, but as a quid pro quo they are governed by a set of rules which control how you take benefits and what you can invest in.

There are significant tax advantages to making pension contributions and pensions are likely to continue to be a very efficient way to provide for your retirement. Our expertise is in helping our clients make the most of pension legislation both while they are saving, but also crucially at the time that they come to need income from their pension.

In the recent past we have helped our clients in many ways:

1). We have set up pensions for clients and begin the income process;

2). We have helped client’s take loans from their pensions to help fund their business;

3). We have organised clients into syndicates to help purchase commercial property to enable them to live off an indexed linked income; and

4). We have used the pension fund to purchase assets off the client directly, thus releasing cash out of the pension to the client.

All of these options are still available and opportunities continue to arise as the legislation on pensions changes.

As many people are now aware the rules are set to change again in April 2010 dropping the tax relief available for those earning over £150,000 to the basic rate. This will change the decision making process in planning for retirement. Pensions however will continue to be important in personal planning in the future, but individuals will need to plan more effectively in the future to take advantage of the rules.

As a last point we would remind potential clients that it is important when considering what to do with your pension that you start the process in good time prior to any decision needing to be made, because the practicalities of making changes can take some time and the legislation does not allow for bad pension administration.