blonde poker forum

There are lots of blondes old and young who play poker for a living. I was wondering what you are all doing to plan for your retirement?

I read something about stakeholder pensions, apparently even if you don't pay tax the government will lump some money in as well. If you pay in about £2800 a year they round it up to £3600.

Or is the plan to sit down at the Vic every afternoon being grumpy? :)
 

Yep thats true, I worked in the pensions industry before I quit for poker and I should have paid more attention, they basically add tax on top of your own contribution, 22%.

I had an idea that an online poker site could pay a small percentage of your rakeback into a pension fund for you, that would be cool.

Assuming you have been in full time employment before relying on poker for your income, always remember to keep your employee NICs up to date via contributions to ensure you'll get the full state pension when you retire.

does anyone know how to do that? who do i give the money to?

There's an NIC department.  I'm self employed and I had to get in touch with them and set up a direct debit.   Giving money to the Government is surprisingly easy to do :)

your tax office will know

if they haven't sent reminders in the post, then contact them, ask them how much you need to contribute to make up for however long its been since the NICs stopped, and then go from there as to what to pay and when, if any.

 

This applies to all types of Personal Pension and not only Stakeholder.

You can invest up to £3600 if unemployed and HMRC pays the tax  (currently 20%)



This could only be done as an employers contribution and I doubt you would like to declare your poker earnings as taxable income.

Geo

PM sent Byron regards 3rd party payments to Pensions.

Geo

You have to watch what you are doing now as only 30 years contributions are required for the full state pension.  As voluntary conts are flat rate and not higher as you approach retirement, paying the last 30 years will provide better value than paying the first 30.

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i have a stakeholder pension not sure what it is but i put a couple of hundred away each month and they will give me it back IF  i make 65 in month blocks

check your pm's mate

Geo

So you will rebate all the commission and not charge any fees?  Good man!

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That ain't free m8


ps I'm a compliance officer - we like to say we help the business, but we really just like being c*nts

LOL this reminds me of when i was getting divorced,there was a lot of arguing about my pension as she wanted it and i didn't want her to have it obviously but I lost the argument,any way i sent her all the info and she eventually came back and offered it back to myself at a price (cant remember exactly how much)

I remember saying i thought it totally wrong that i should have to buy back what was originally mine and told her i wasn't interested.

It turned out that the pension we were arguing about was my state pension which i opted out of serps and put it into a Private pension plan and she couldn't actually have it..... ;nana;

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look at an illustration - when it says cost of advice = zero its free

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like I said I'm a compliance officer - we're all b4astards, don't take it personally

go to skill school and re train as a plumber they always need plumbing advice...

Opting out of SERPS (State Earnings Related pension) only opts out of SERPS  or as its known now S2P, you are still in the State Pension.

Tbh I think any poker players who have "retired" and have a bit of gamble are probably wasting money paying NICs or taking out a stakeholder. If you have no pension income when you hit 65+ then if Pension Credit (PC) still exists you will get this, which is MORE than the State Pension and is not based on any contributions.

Of course PC could be abolished in the next X years before you retire :)

state pension is a ponzi scheme of course and with the amount of money Crash Gordon is borrowing atm it will no doubt collapse 2 days before my retirement

I never knew you were 64!  :D

Pension credit may well be more than state pension, however to advise people not to invest in a personal pension of some sort is reckless imo.

With the right advice and correct product and investment a personal pension is a must these days.

Agree that there are some shitty ones out there but stick to the main providers and get a decent advisor and you'll benefit greatly.

And I agree with doubleup, there are NO charge - free pensions out there.

Unfortunately I have the compliance c***ts to deal with on a daily basis  :)up

Geo

The advantage of a pension for us in 'normal' jobs it that we get tax relief on our contributions.

The disadvantage is we then get taxed on the income we take from the pension when we retire.

UK pro poker players don't pay tax, so there's no relief to be gained. With that in mind, from a purely financial point of view, I'd suggest an ISA as a more appropriate investment. You can invest in a wide range of asset classes, and all growth and income is tax free. So you'd pay no tax ever - assuming the govt doesn't change the rules.

However there is something else to be considered. Do you have the financial discipline to leave that money be, regardless of your ongoing poker results, or is there a danger you will cash out the lot and go play $500/$1000 NL after a burst of tilt?

In that respect pensions are a really good choice for tilty players who have been on a good run. The money is locked away for a long time and cannot be unlocked in one big lump sum - regardless of what daytime ads tell you! (Unless you die, at which point the risk of you blowing the dough can be assumed to be minimal)

Another thing to consider is do you plan on taking out a mortgage at any point? I've always thought for well bankrolled players an offset mortgage would be a good idea. Keeping your bankroll in an offset account means it's easy to reach but at the same time it's saving you interest on your mortgage.

Disclaimer: I'm not a qualified financial advisor.

Edit: This is the bit from the HMRC about their top-up (which they call relief). It's currently £720. Not convinced that makes it worthwhile but there's probably an argument for considering putting your 1st £2,880 into a stakeholder scheme.

Even if you are not a taxpayer you can still get tax relief on pension contributions. You can put in up to £2,880 in any one tax year and the government will top this up with another £720 - giving you total pension savings with tax relief of £3,600 per year.

nice post Div, you have covered a lot of what I have been thinking about. Mike Sexton said that if a poker player has a credit card then he has a bankroll, let alone a bunch of ISAs.

would still love to know what some older pro's are doing, burying head in sand? I suppose I have up til now.

also on the ISA thing there's so much contradictory stuff, for example I read this and thought yay, I'll fill up a UK tracker ISA and the year after a US one then maybe something sexier like China or India, this stuff is LOL easy

http://homepage.mac.com/j.norstad/finance/total.html

then read this and think I need to find a good fund manager

http://hedgefund.blogspot.com/2007/06/john-bogle-and-index-funds.html

then think Fk it do some research, do it all myself in a SIPP mmm derivatives are ultra sexy

http://www.zealllc.com/2001/monster.htm

but whatever I do I seem to need to be winning about £300K a year to be able to afford a can of baked beans when I'm 80

lol i blogged something on this in 2006 and managed to depress the fk out of every poker player who read it...

http://wonkyjim.blogspot.com/2006/04/do-you-really-want-to-be-playing-full.html (http://wonkyjim.blogspot.com/2006/04/do-you-really-want-to-be-playing-full.html)

I was planning on having a mattress full of fifties. bad idea?

bit hard and cold sleeping on all that metal

yeah because of inflation, some people seem to think we are headed for a period of deflation which would mean that your 50's actually increase in value, but I thinks that's a load of bollox tbh, if the pound has dropped 30% or whatever then imports are going to cost 30% more and we import pretty much everything in this country so once we have sold out of the stuff currently on sale then prices are going to go up imo.

even if I'm wrong Crash Gordon is printing money for fun atm which history tells us is very inflationary. So in 10 years time you 50's might only be worth a tenner or even less if he really cocks it up and we get hyperinflation. And the good thing supposedly about inflation is that it reduces debt so your mortgage will be a lot less, but the other thing you get with inflation is high interest rates so it may turn out to be not so awesome for those of us with mortgages. It will be great for the government tho because I think most of their borrowing is on fixed rate gilts? plz correct me if I'm wrong.

the way to beat inflation is to buy assets- shares, houses, gold etc

It isn't if the value of the shares, houses, gold etc drops over time.

so it would be a better idea to?

I would say if you want to be a safe investor then a house is the way to go. At least then no matter what happens you've still got somewhere to live.

The truth is that nobody really knows and they never will.

Investment companies will tell you to do things and some will get it right, others will get it wrong. The ones that get it right will advertise the fact and get more business. The ones that get it wrong will go bust and the employees will start up another company making a living out of guesswork and gambling your money on the outcome with very little risk to themselves.

Or am I just being paranoid?

I'm not saying that investing in those things may not turn out to be a good idea, but they're not guaranteed to beat inflation, or even hold their value. Many of the current economic problems have been caused by people thinking there are 'sure things' that are guaranteed to increase in value.

you have to remember this is alex martin we are talking about the only fiftys he will have to hide under his mattress is 50pences. have you not seen him play poker?

mind you by the time he reaches pensionable age the metal used in the coins might be worth something

I'm of the thought that we are heading for a very short (months) period of extremely low inflation (maybe deflation) after which I reckon there's a good chance inflation will come back big time. Like you say there is a lot of money being pumped into the US and UK economies in particular. Added to that, a few years of high inflation would handily reduce the real cost of the massive government borrowings that are being undertaken right now.

I am seriously contemplating trading up the housing ladder this year and going for a very long term fixed rate on the basis that's the closest I can get to acting like a government.


It's each to their own on this one. My own thought is that investment performance is uncertain, fixed fees are a definite. So, when I set up my pension I vetoed most of the financial advisers fancy recommendations and lumped most of my money into tracker funds investing in the major economies, and some into a company bond and a UK Index Linked Gilts fund. The only money I was willing to pay a higher management fee on was the cash I put into a couple of emerging market funds.

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Mike I suggest you speak to your compliance officer before claiming that being paid by commission is the same as free advice! I think the FSA has a very different view on this!

As for your statement: -


I think the taxman has a real issue with this, as effectively you are taking money out of your pension tax free and before your retirement age. I understand that this could be viewed as an unauthorised payment and result in tax charges of up to 70% on your entire pension fund.

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I agree that moving the pension does not take any cash out of the pension, but rebating the commission does.

For example you move £100k from ABC to XYZ with 5% level commission and rebate half of this to the client -  net result £95,000 in your pension and £2,500 tax free in your hand. You repeat this exercise until no money in pension and £50k in your hand.

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See this is the problem with the industry, the review is not technically free it is paid for by way of commission.

The financial advice process has several stages: -

factfind, research, advice/recommendation, implemenation (transferring the pension in this case).

If working on a commission basis, then the commission pays for all four stages, hence the advice is not free - it may be fee free but it is not free.

You have also not answered my question about rebating commission from a pension sale/transfer

In effect your saying steps 1, 2 & 3 are free, however move to step 4 and you will pay commission to cover all 4.

Offering to split commission is totally against the rules. To offer reduced commission rates from what you normally charge is ok.

Anyone with an ounce of sense and willing to do a wee bit legwork can get this all done for free for themselves through the Main life offices.

There are some Pension plans where a scaled commission basis is available. Life office pays the initial commission to the advisor and then claims back from clients policy over a period which could be as much as 5 years.

e.g. - Commission payable is £5k.............clawed back from clients fund over 5 years = £1k per year, paid in monthly payments of £416.67 (rounded)

This benefits the client greatly if market movements are good or if they are invested in a cash type account which is based on Bank of England base rate.

Why anyone elects to pay a large sum on outset of plan is beyond me.

p.s. If any blondes are within a Group PP or Group Stakeholder there are now opportunities to do Direct Offer admin on their policies (in effect not be forced to take advice from an IFA and pay exhorbitant fees) however only advisable to be done by people with a bit of pensions/investments savvy.

I work for a large pensions company, however cannot give advice, I can merely state facts as above.

Geo