You have spent decades diligently putting away money, always contributing to your work pension scheme, not spending all of your take home pay to keep your cost of living low. At times it was hard when there was a recession but you kept saving. Other times you saw others with a new car that you […]
On June 29, 2011, the Social Welfare and Pensions Act became law in Ireland. In that Act, the State pension age was gradually increased, starting in January 2014 by increasing the State pension age for those born between 1 January 1949 and 31 December 1954 to age 66. For those born between 1 January 1955 […]
When the ARF was first introduced, you were under no obligation to make any withdrawals from it if you didn’t want to. This was was very useful for those with other sources of income, especially if those other sources were taxed as income. You could just let your ARF accumulate in value in a tax […]
Up until 2005, you could have as big a pension pot as you wanted. Then, because some very wealthy people took advantage of this rule, a cap of €5m was imposed. This was increased to €5,418,085 by 2008 before it being reduced to €2.3m in 2010 and further still to €2m in 2014. The majority […]
Working with a lot of business owners, I see that a lot of their wealth is tied up in their business. It is therefore vital that they are able to build up as much values as they can in their business and then sell it in the most tax efficient manner. This week, we have […]
As a financial advisor, the AMRF requirement is a pain. When people ask their options in retirement, I explain the annuity and the ARF options (no one goes for taxable cash). But then I have to say, if you do not have a guaranteed pension income of €12,700 per annum, you must put €63,500 in […]
There is a very good thread on the askaboutmoney.com website about how much a normal retiree should invest in equities . As is often the case, there was some very good arguments put forward. The person who started the thread was looking for a definitive answer, what % should a retiree invest in equities in their […]
After spending decades working, have now retired and you are drawing down your pension. During all those years working, your employer always looked after your income tax. You got a payslip each month with the gross payment, a load of deductions and the net pay in the bottom right corner. This always equalled the money […]
When I work with people on planning for their retirement, a key question I ask is “How much do you want to live on in retirement?”. This is a really hard question to answer, especially if you are in your 20’s or 30’s. Afterall, what will the 60+ year old me enjoy doing in over […]
At retirement, if you choose to invest in an ARF, there is the restriction of the Approved Minimum Retirement Fund (AMRF), where you have to put the first €63,500 of your retirement fund into a policy where you can only draw access 4% of it each year until you are age 75, at which stage […]