UK Personal Pensions
What is a UK personal pension?
A UK personal pension is a way of saving money to ensure a comfortable retirement. In the UK it has major tax benefits which make it the best type of retirement plan for the vast majority of people, who, unless they're rich, really do need to save for old age.
While there are alternative ways of saving the pension is generally the best option for most people.
The new Stakeholder pension is a type of personal pension which has all the best qualities of low charges and flexibility.
(Read more in How does a personal pension work etc.).
Back to main guide menu
Pros and Cons of a UK personal pension
It's essential to save up for your retirement. A pension is the most obvious and best way for normal people to do this because of the major tax benefits you get and because it's a "standard arrangement" that's managed for you and relatively easy to keep your eye on.
If anything goes wrong you are much more likely to be covered for compensation than with less usual methods of saving.
You get a major boost to your savings in that the Inland Revenue effectively gives you back all the tax paid on the money you're saving.
Also your pension fund is free of capital gains tax.
If you tried an alternative way of saving you would normally be subject to taxes which could knock you back significantly.
Furthermore your savings are invested leading to dramatic benefits from Compound Interest.
The cons are that the your pension's investment portfolio might not have performed very well. In other words it didn't grow as much as hoped for and you are left with less than expected.
When the annual charges are taken off your pension fund every year you could even end up with less than you put in !
Back to main guide menu
Can you have more than one personal pension?
You can have as many personal pensions as you like provided that added together all your payments / contributions do not exceed your tax break limits i.e. you cannot claim tax breaks on more than 17.5% of you income if you are under 35 and so on.
(See contribution limits for personal pensions.)
Back to main guide menu
|
