DIY Pensions for a Limited Company?

[kryten22uk]

It shouldn't make any difference to your mortgage offer. A cursory view of your accounts will determine profitability before 'staff costs'.

'Shouldnt' but unfortunately does. Many mortgage providers just look at the one profit figure.

[fiisch]

I have a SIPP which to date I have contributed ad-hoc payments direct from my Ltd. But now I have some more largeish payments to make, I am thinking of taking them as dividends and paying them into SIPP personally. This should generate tax refund/uplift such that I've invested same amount as if just done gross via Ltd?

Reason for asking about this approach is that for mortgages etc, they look at company profits. Making company pension contributions depresses the company profits, hence making the amount available to loan lower.

Not sure if this is an option for you, but some lenders (e.g.: Halifax) look at the day rate multiplied by 48 weeks, so they tend to be a good choice of lender...... Historic profits are irrelevant.

[kryten22uk]

Not sure if this is an option for you, but some lenders (e.g.: Halifax) look at the day rate multiplied by 48 weeks, so they tend to be a good choice of lender...... Historic profits are irrelevant.

Thanks. It is an option for me, and indeed it is the route I chose for my current mortgage. The thing is that some lenders only look at the profit line, and hence I try to forward plan in order so as to not reduce the pool of possible lenders come remortgage time.

[aa2006]

Good news, following Fred Bloggs advice i called CB back and explained to them I wasn't happy with the fact for 20+ years every month i would have to submit a form, especially since other platforms provide this functionality. After she spoke to the SIPP department they said if I am planning to pay the same amount each month then what they can do is reuse the same form.

So next month when I send in the form and as long as tthe amounts are the same they will reuse the form, which means i don't need to resubmit every month.

Very pleased they worked something out for me, I am very happy now

So I thought I would give an update to my experience with Close Brothers after 6 months and how bad things have become.

As mentioned in my previous post I was manually making monthly contributions, each month I would log into my portal and make a credit card payment. I would inform them of the payment and they would reuse one of my previously submitted forms to process the payment into my SIPP account.

This has now changed, after a few months they changed their minds and told me that I would now have to send them a new form every month a payment is made. Obviously I wasn't happy about this since they renegade on what we agreed after just a few months.

So now not only do I have to manually make payment and then send the form in each month, but things have now got worse. About a month ago after I purchased some funds for my SIPP, I noticed the value for my account doubled, my SIPP balance was showing twice the funds I actually had. Then a day later I noticed I was not able to make further purchases since my cash accounts balance dropped from 1800 to 0.

I reported this to CB and for the first week I called every day and kept being told that they were still trying to resolve the issue. 3 weeks have passed the portal still doesn't work and have had no further updates from them.

They are one of the cheapest brokers around for the value of my pension, but I am thinking of moving to another broker who can handle monthly payments and is more reliable. I don’t want to spend the next 20+ years manually making monthly contributions and filling in forms etc.

So basically not happy with Close Brothers

[Pondlife]

Numpty question but does a fund charge the same fees regardless of platform assuming the platform has access to it?

[SimonMac]

Numpty question but does a fund charge the same fees regardless of platform assuming the platform has access to it?

Yes, however each platform will levy their own fees on top and might even discount the fund fee to attract customers

[Fred Bloggs]

Numpty question but does a fund charge the same fees regardless of platform assuming the platform has access to it?

It's not quite that simple, I'm afraid. I assume by "funds" you are referring to OEICs or unit trusts, but not investment trusts. It is very common now for funds to have different classes with different charges attached. Depending where you buy the fund from, depends on the class they offer. So, it can indeed vary by the platform you choose, or if you buy directly with the the fund house. On top of that, your choice of platform will levy it's own charges on top. These vary rather a lot. They also vary between a % fee and a fixed rate fee. You have to do your homework, I'm afraid here. HTH.

[Fred Bloggs]

Yes, however each platform will levy their own fees on top and might even discount the fund fee to attract customers

Not universally true, I'm afraid. See previous reply.

[AlecJ]

Pension contributions

Hi, sorry if this is a silly question, but is the general rule that it is most tax efficient to pay into your pension straight from your LTD? This is assuming i have used up all my Basic rate band already

[Ldak]

How large an employer pension contribution to make?

Finally stopped lurking in this forum and took some action!

Opening SIPP (HL) for Ltd contributions to my (first) pension.

First, thanks to those who have provided much needed info in this forum.

I guess this is more a question for my accountant, which I'm in process of changing due to poor performance etc, but I like to get a feel for stuff before I ask the 'grownup'.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the maximum percentage of the amount that would otherwise go to corporation tax at year end one should make to a SIPP, to avoid (any) raised eyebrows at HMRC? In other words, is it ok to seek to pay no corporation tax at all?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.