1. Save Money in Fees

Although Pension Practitioner.Com cannot promise you a government rebate if you trade in your current SSAS administrators, they can certainly provide you with a better service and most likely save you money in fees.

2. No charges for your pension scheme transactions

Pension Practitioner.Com makes no charges for your pension scheme transactions. As a result, businesses get to invest their funds more cost effectively.

3. Decide how your money is deposited and protected

You remain the sole signatory to assets covered by your SSAS (small self administered scheme). As such you can choose how your money can be deposited and protected. This ensures that you are not pigeon-holed into using a bank that might not suit you.

4. Take full control of your SSAS

Pension Practitioner.Com can make it very easy for you to take full control of your SSAS. They have a simple, proven method to ensure all SSAS assets are in your names as trustees. Lawyers of the company will update your scheme rules and will ensure that you can view all aspects of our work on your scheme at the click of a button.

5. One of the lowest administration fee in the industry

The takeover administration fee of Pension Practitioner.Com is amongst the lowest in the industry.
6. Access to an experienced team of Pension Experts

Pension Practitioner .Com are UK’s leading SSAS administrator. You might be thinking of using a new administrator, but are unsure of making the choice from using the internet. Reassuringly, Pension Practitioner .Com are experienced experts in SSAS pension administration and are available to meet with you to discuss your requirements.

7. Quality service recognised by the industry

Pension Practitioner .Com has received widespread industry recognition within a relatively short time. The Pension Professional SSAS provider survey has identified Pension Practitioner .Com as one of the fastest growing SSAS administration companies in the UK.

The quality and professionalism of their SSAS service has been acknowledged industry wide. The company has been short-listed for the prestigious Moneyfacts award for UK Best SSAS Provider 2011.. Moneyfacts is regarded as an authoritative independent source trusted by intermediaries, providers and journalists alike for financial products and services.

You can find all the information you need on SSAS on their website. Alternatively, you can contact the company directly to discuss your SSAS or seek a third party opinion on an aspect of your SSAS scheme (please note that Pension Practitioner.Com do not give investment advice).

A SSAS can purchase an asset from a member or a third party. If the individual or business owns that asset, it may be contributed into the pension scheme and tax relief can be obtained on the payment. Income from royalty is received tax free and a quarter of those funds received can be paid out without deduction of tax to the member of the scheme. The balance can be paid as income from age 50/55 and payable for life from say, royalties received by the SSAS.

Provided that the intellectual property does not have a predictive lifespan of less than 51 years, it may be an acceptable investment by the SSAS.

Case Example

Catherine is a recording artist and owns the licence and marketing rights to her new album called “The Album” via her Company, Catherine & Co Ltd. A valuation of The Album is undertaken which on sales to date plus projected income is £500,000. Catherine & Co Limited last year had pre tax profits of £400,000 and this year the figures are similar. After taxation and financial advice was given, 50% of the rights to the licence was contributed to Catherine’s SSAS. This tax deductible payment reduced pre-tax profits by £250,000, giving a tax relief of £52,500.

The SSAS now owns half of the licence and copyright to The Album.

The income stream to The Album over the next 10 years amounted to £375,000, of which the SSAS received half of that royalty income. The amount being £187,500. Catherine was able to take £46,875 tax free at age 50 from the SSAS, the balance of the fund continues to pay her an income. Had that licence remained in the Company, the business would have incurred a corporation tax cost of £39,375, in addition to income tax on the dividend of £75,817 (based on current tax rates) for Catherine.

About SSAS:

SSAS is a pension scheme established by the operators of a business who act as members and trustees. They dictate investment policy and directly benefit from the proceeds. By having a pension scheme loan to a business from a SSAS, the small business not only gets tax breaks on interest repayments but the pension scheme loan terms and conditions can be set favourably by the SSAS.

You can contribute and sell assets from your business to your SSAS which, in addition to building a retirement fund for you, could also ring-fence your assets against business creditors.

There remains substantial differences between SSAS and SIPP. In SSAS, the employer usually acts scheme provider. A business such as a limited company or partnership may be the scheme provider. On the other hand the SIPP provider is traditionally a financial house, such as a bank, building society, insurance company. However, this was extended by the FSA.

Pension Practitioner.Com are the UK’s No 1 SSAS administrator. This article is published by Internet Marketing and Web Design Agency on behalf of Pension Practitioner.

Pension experts and SSAS administrators have predicted that employers are likely to be affected by the new regulations coming in effect from 2012 to provide certain members of your workforce with a pension scheme. This has come about because people are living longer and the government feels that people are not saving enough for retirement- hence these work based pension schemes are now a mandatory requirement.

Even if you provide an existing pension arrangement for your workers, the new reform criteria stipulates that certain conditions must be met by the pension scheme in terms of contributions paid or benefits received. If you do provide a pension scheme already it may meet the qualifying criteria; your financial advisor will be able to review your existing arrangement and tell you whether it does qualify, and if not what needs to be done to ensure that it does. We offer a review service also where you do not have a financial advisor appointed to the pension scheme.

Employees who will need to automatically enrol are known as ‘eligible jobholders’. This encompasses the following people:

• Those who earn more than the minimum earnings threshold
• Those who are aged between 22 and state pension age; and
• Those who work in the UK.

According the new pension regulations, employers will be required to make an employer’s contribution towards the pension schemes of employees. Employers must contribute at least 3% of their earnings (you can contribute more if you wish). The rest of the contributions will be made by the employees who will contribute the rest and will receive tax relief on the contribution- the total contribution is set at an 8% minimum. Businesses and employers are also be required to register the pension scheme with the Pensions Regulator and provide them with details on the number of employees that you have automatically enrolled.

You will be given a starting date issued by the government from which the pension scheme will have to be in place- the first starting date will begin in October 2012 and will continue until 2016. Employers who employ a large number of workers under PAYE will have an earlier start date than those who do not employ as many in their PAYE scheme. Please visit the following link to find out broadly when your start date will be www.tpr.gov.uk/staging.

There is, of course, no restriction on setting up a work based pension scheme prior to your start date. Pension Practitioner.Com are can administer work based pension schemes now - please call 0800 634 4862 or email us at info@pensionpractitioner.com if you require more information on this. We will also be launching a website over the summer dedicated to work based pension schemes - the domain name of the website will be www.workbasedpensions.com.

You can find out more by visiting Pension Practitioner .Com the UK’s No 1 SSAS administrator or by calling freephone 0800 634 4862.

Moneyfacts is regarded as an authoritative independent source trusted by intermediaries, providers and journalists alike for financial products and services. Investment Life & Pensions Moneyfacts Awards 2011 shortlist has been announced and in the first year of being put forward that Pension Practitioner .Com have been shortlisted for UK Best SSAS Provider 2011.

Pension Practitioner .Com is the most recent significant newcomer to the Pension Industry and offers an alternative approach to SSAS, whereby the members of the pension scheme have total control over all aspects of their SSAS, ranging from operation of bank accounts to title rights over land and property. This SSAS offering reduces costs, simplifies ownership and gives complete control to the SSAS client.

Pension Practitioner .Com’s aim is to provide a simple but effective low cost SSAS administration service. Pension Practitioner .Com also act as a technical resource to trustees, accountants and financial advisors on often complex pension matters in order that they may deliver added value to SSS scheme members.

Brad Davis of Pension Practitioner says on being put forward “We are most grateful for the support of intermediaries and journalists proposing us. We are also most grateful to all our clients for allowing us to work with them”.

Pension Practitioner .Com the UK’s No 1 SSAS administrator. You can find out more by visiting their website or by calling freephone 0800 634 4862

About the  Moneyfacts awards

The Investment Life & Pensions Moneyfacts Awards are one of the most prestigious Awards in the UK which is one of the highlights of the industry calendar. Every year a selection of businesses are shortlisted for the overall quality and value of their service. Businesses are selected through rigorous product monitoring carried out throughout the preceding year and consultation with the adviser community. The ceremony is the pinnacle of the year’s product and service advocacy. The 2011 awards ceremony will be held at The London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square.

Shortlists for 2011 have now been announced. You can download the document here that includes Pension Practitioner.Com along with other companies across different award categories.

This select team of pension experts structure and administer various types of small self administered schemes (SSAS) for businesses and entrepreneurs.

Pension Practitioner .com do not simply keep your scheme tax efficient. They guide professional advisers in unique ways for example, re-leverage your client’s pension fund to aid business with loans, in-specie contributions and transactions, all with the same tax efficient, low cost ethos the Company are getting a reputation for.

They administer for you a small self administered scheme ( SSAS) and ensure that you are registered for tax relief. Your contributions may be structured as a tax deductible expense. This can take the form of an in-specie contribution of a share of or the whole of one of your properties to your pension scheme. Your pension scheme can if necessary, secure a commercial mortgage with your company being co-owner - this often arises where the borrowing requirement is more than 50% of the value of your pension scheme.

By contributing property, land or a share to your small self administered scheme (SSAS) you may enjoy a lower corporation tax and allow the property to build up in the scheme free of capital gains tax.

After regulated advice you transfer your old pension into your SSAS, account. Your scheme then purchases equity in the property (Subject to independent valuation.). This releases cash to you. A further in-specie contribution is made from the property to your scheme. This contribution generates full tax relief.

Capital gains tax is off-set from tax relief accured. No stamp duty arises if the overall transaction is less than 150,000 pounds and does not form a series of transaction exceeding this threshold.

A SSAS is best looked at as the occupational equivalent of a SIPP, because it is established by an employer for the benefit of all or some of their employees. Pension Practitioner .com managers explained the member trustees are responsible for the proper running of the scheme, including the making of investment decisions on the scheme’s assets.

I questioned that since ‘pension simplification’ legislation took effect in April 2006, many of the differences between SIPP and SSAS have been annulled with regard to benefit and contribution limits? The SSAS experts at Pension Practitioner .com showed that there are other important differences, of which one needs to be aware. Particularly if investments in property or one needs loans to survive the effects of the credit crunch, are being considered.

Pension Practitioner .com clarified that although SIPPs and SSAS have the same borrowing limit of 50% of the net fund assets, it is invariably simpler to facilitate borrowing on a SSAS, and less risky. This is because of the non-allocation of the scheme’s total assets rather (as with SIPPs) than on those of each individual SIPP fund.

A highlighted example is the scenario where, Mum and Dad wish to begin drawing benefits from the SSAS. Those benefits can be provided from other scheme assets, rather than selling a part of the property to younger scheme members, ie. the children. Pension Practitioner .com pointed out that with a collection of SIPPs, the children’s plans may have to purchase a greater share of the property from Mum and Dad’s SIPP, which is difficult or impossible if the children’s SIPPs require borrowing and they are at or even near to the stipulated 50% of the funds maximum borrowing limit.

It is not only family scenarios that prospers from SSAS flexibility of how benefits are provided. Pension Practitioner .com explained that if a director resigns from the business, whilst owning a part of the business property through their SIPP, the remaining scheme members being unlikely to want the property to be continued to be owned as an investment by a now unconnected individual. This does not arise with SSAS, as the former member whilst still a trustee, the expectation would be to make a cash transfer payment to a pension plan of their choice, severing their involvement with company and scheme affairs.

Pension Practitioner .com added further that one needs to ensure liquidity with SSAS, to provide retirement benefits, transfer values or death benefits. But as none of the scheme assets are earmarked to individual members, there is much greater flexibility over how payments are provided for and made. When an illiquid asset such as a business property is owned by a collection of SIPPs, there is a potential liquidity problem if any one of those SIPPs needs to make a payment of retirement, death or transfer benefits.

• The maximum loan is 50% of net assets of the scheme at the time of the loan.

• The loan is for a maximum period of five years.

• The interest rate has to be a minimum of 1% over the average of six high-street bank base rates.

• The capital and interest is repayable equally over the period of the loan. The debt payment can be rolled over for one year at no cost.

• The loan must be secured by first charge on an asset of agreed value to the loan plus interest.

The issue of repayment throughout the period of the loan can be overcome. There is no stipulation in the Finance Act to stop a loan from being taken out for one year, repaid with interest at the end of the year and another and another loan immediately taken out. Documenting the loan and ensuring security is in place can be handled by the schemes administrator/practitioner.

In the current economic climate, we constantly hear that on a daily basis companies cannot raise capital. Regardless of Government suppositions, most business persons will tell you that borrowing money is extremely difficult. “The banks are just not lending” to quote one source. This make the possibility of being able to borrow from their pension scheme a significant benefit.

Established companies with excellent track records and adequate security are finding it difficult to impossible to secure lines of credit. Those who gain credit do so at extraordinarily high rates. Base plus 5% to base plus 8% not unheard of.

The Bank of England may drop base rates, but banks are not passing that rate down.

Experts are saying the banking system will never be the same again. Business lending will be more difficult this year than last year. But for those who know, thank goodness for the SSAS.