Everything You Need To Do
- Max your pension contributions – Make the most of any employer match. Salary sacrifice as much as you can. Self-employed and those with companies – use pensions for tax planning.
- SIPP and SSAS Definitions and benefits – Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP): Different degrees – HL vs Dentons, for example. Small Self-Administered Scheme (SSAS): Can make a loan back to the sponsoring company for company business purposes (up to 50% of the pension value, repayable on a capital and interest basis over a specific period and at a commercial rate of interest). Can purchase commercial property and lease back to the business. They only have one scheme charge – even if there are several members – so they can be cost-effective.
- Seek advice – This is the deep end of the pool in terms of complexity. There are always conflicting considerations, and a professional adviser can add a great deal of value and justify their fees may times over.
- Just because you can invest in non-standard things, doesn’t mean you should – Not worth paying if you’re not going to use the functionality. ETFs and ITs are shares so need SIPP functionality, even if only SIPP-lite, like HL, AJ Bell or II.
- Technically can still set up a Defined Benefit scheme – But… Employer takes on all the risk.
