The self-employed have several options to build up financial resources for retirement – the Approved Retirement Scheme, unit trusts, managed funds and self-managed investment portfolios, most of which can deliver tax-free investment returns.
The Approved Retirement Scheme is a private pension arrangement offered by financial institutions and is open to persons who are not members of a similar scheme or of a superannuation fund. Members of such schemes can contribute up to 20 per cent of their pensionable salary.
The portion of income which is contributed to the scheme is not taxed, neither is the income that it earns while it remains invested in the scheme, but the pension the contributor receives during retirement is.
As the contributions of the many participants are pooled, the scheme is able to invest in a diversity of instruments, thereby reducing risk, and the fact that the funds are managed full-time by professionals removes the need for the contributor to devote time to manage the investments.
The retirement schemes are defined contribution, or money purchase, schemes so retirement benefits are based on the contributions made by the member and the returns earned on them. The contributor takes all the risks and can expect good benefits when the returns are good but risks getting low benefits when investment returns are poor. There are no guarantees. Further, although contributors may choose from several funds, the portfolios are not customised.
Before deciding to become a member of a retirement scheme, it is important to check its track record, performance and fees. Comparing several schemes is a prudent course to take before making a decision.
As much as possible, it is important to have other sources of savings to supplement a pension considering, among other things, increasing life expectancy and the corrosive effect that inflation tends to have on income and on pensions that are fixed, that is, they are not increased periodically to compensate for inflation.
The unit trust is an option. It generally has several professionally-managed funds which invest in diverse investment instruments and re-invests the income earned. The returns on most are not taxed, but, like other professionally-managed funds, the managers charge a fee for managing the funds.
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