Around this time of the year, we would like to remind you to consider topping up your retirement annuity fund and tax-free investment. Retirement Annuity According to the current legislation, you may contribute up to 27.5% of your taxable income to a retirement annuity fund and enjoy tax deductions, subject to a limit of R350,000. As the 29th February is the end of the tax year, you must calculate and pay the additional amount to your retirement annuity prior to this date, in order to qualify for tax deductions and tax refunds. Here is an example: Ms Rama has a monthly salary of R80,000. In December she received a bonus of R100,000. Every month she contributes R5,000 to a personal retirement annuity fund. Her annual income is then R1,060,000. The maximum tax-deductible contribution to retirement annuity is R291,500. Over the year she has contributed R60,000 to her retirement annuity fund, so the additional amount she may top up in her RA is R231,500. Tax-Free Savings Account You may contribute up to R36,000 to a tax-free savings account in a tax year. You must calculate how much you have contributed so far, R36,000 is total contribution across investment platforms for member not per investment. You can pay the additional amount to your tax-free savings account prior to the 29th of February, in order to make use of current tax year's allowance. You can also start a tax-free investment in the name of your children. If you would like to speak to a Financial advisor, contact
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Morningstar Investment Management has informed us of managed portfolio changes. Please click below to view the letter.
We are pleased to share that Allan Gray, one of the largest linked investment service providers (LISPs) in South Africa, has reduced its adminsitration fees. Allan Gray have reduced their local administration fees for third-party funds, effective 1 October 2022. In early 2023, they will combine a client’s local and offshore platform assets for the purposes of calculating their applicable administration fees on each platform, enabling clients to benefit from lower fees. In early 2023, they will introduce a step fee for new clients investing below their lump sum minimum of R50,000. Allan Gray reducing local administration fees for third-party funds Allan Gray's new fees, which are effective 1 October 2022, are outlined below. The administration fee charged for local Allan Gray funds will remain unchanged at 0.20% per annum (excl. VAT). Combining local and offshore platform assets to calculate administration fees (from 2023)
Allan Gray will combine your local and offshore platform assets when calculating your administration fees which will result in more of your assets being subject to the lower fee tiers. Currently, your local administration fees are based on the market value of all local platform assets linked to your investor number and applied to the local administration fee tiers. Your offshore administration fees are calculated separately based on the market value of all offshore platform assets linked to your investor number and applied to the offshore administration fee tiers. The effective date of this change will be communicated ahead of implementation in early 2023. What does this all mean for you as an investor? For clients with assets more than R1 million with Allan Gray, they will enjoy reduced administration fees, so they will keep more of the investment returns. We applaud Allan Gray for reducing costs of investing for clients. For clients with assets less than R1 million with Allan Gray, the 0.5% administration fee stays the same. For new clients with less than R50,000 invested, they will have to pay a step administration fee of 1.0% per annum (excl. VAT), until their investment value has reached R50,000. So Allan Gray is not so cost effective towards smaller investors. This cost is understandable, as there is a base cost of opening and maintaining an investor account. If you have any questions or feedback, email us at service@daberistic.com Around January and February of every year, we would like to remind you to consider topping up your retirement annuity fund and tax-free investment.
According to the current legislation, you may contribute up to 27.5% of your taxable income to a retirement annuity fund and enjoy tax deductions, subject to a limit of R350,000. As the 28th February is the end of the tax year, you must calculate and pay the additional amount to your retirement annuity prior to this date, in order to qualify for tax deductions and tax refunds. Here is an example: Ms Rama has a monthly salary of R80,000. In December she received a bonus of R100,000. Every month she contributes R5,000 to a personal retirement annuity fund. Her annual income is then R1,060,000. The maximum tax-deductible contribution to retirement annuity is R291,500. Over the year she has contributed R60,000 to her retirement annuity fund, so the additional amount she may top up in her RA is R231,500 Tax-Free Savings Account You may contribute up to R36,000 to a tax-free savings account in a tax year. You must calculate how much you have contributed so far since 1 March last year and pay the additional amount to your tax-free savings account prior to the 28th of February, in order to make use of current tax year's allowance. You can also start a tax-free investment in the name of your children. Contact us today to top up your retirement annuity or tax-free investment - email service@daberistic.com 2022 has witnessed the worst stock market and bond market performances globally in the last 40 years. While we advise clients to be patient and not withdraw or change their investment portfolios (at the wrong time), as we expect the market to recover in the next 12 to 18 months, we also understand you as investors are looking for alternative investment options that provide high, secure returns. In this article we highlight 3 options.
1. Fedgroup Secured Investment Fedgroup Secured Investment (Participation Bond) has been around for over 30 years. It is a five-year investment, giving investors a fixed interest rate return over the five-year period. Currently it has a special offer, giving investors 12.6% p.a. compounded return over 5 years. If an investor invests R1,000,000. he would get R1,611,335 (capital and interest) back at the end of five years, after our advisor fees. The interest income may be subject to tax, based on your tax position. If your marginal tax rate is 35%, then your after-tax return is 8.19%. If your marginal tax rate is 45%, then your after-tax return is 6.93%. 2. Guaranteed growth investment This type of investment is offered by life insurance companies using an endowment product structure. You make a lump sum investment, at the end of five years you get the maturity value back, tax free. Life insurance companies use their tax planning to offer this investment product. For a R1,000,000 investment, currently the life insurance companies offer the following after-tax yields: Discovery - R1,398,439, 6.94% Liberty - R1,380,442, 6.66% Momentum - R1,403,175, 7.01% Old Mutual Wealth - R1,402,337, 6.90% These yields are subject to change weekly. Please contact us to obtain the latest best rates. Guaranteed growth investment is especially attractive to high-income, conservative investors looking for guaranteed returns after tax. 3. RSA Retail Savings Bonds RSA Retail Savings Bonds is offered by the South Africa National Treasury, you lend money to the government and receive interest every 6 months. It offers 2, 3 and 5-year fixed rates as follows: 2 Year Fixed Rate 9.50% 3 Year Fixed Rate 9.75% 5 Year Fixed Rate 11.50% Minimum investment is R1,000. You can invest up to R5,000,000 in RSA Retail Savings Bonds. Persons over the age of 60 can receive their interest payments monthly. For more information on RSA Retail Savings Bonds, visit official website https://www.rsaretailbonds.gov.za/home.aspx. If you would like to speak to an advisor about investment options, email service@daberistic.com with your details. Last month we talked about setting long-term goals. This month we focus on the next step: Focus on building assets. This is a topic I am very passionate about, and I have helped many clients do this. The accounting definition of an asset is this: Things that are resources owned by a company and which have future economic value that can be measured and can be expressed in Rands. Examples include cash, investments, accounts receivable, inventory, supplies, land, buildings, equipment, and vehicles. I prefer Robert Kiyosaki's definition of an asset: An asset is something that puts money in your pocket. Examples are buy-to-let property, cash-generating businesses, shares, unit trusts, investments that pay you interest, gold, silver. You should spend your lifetime accumulating assets that put money in your pocket. Understanding assets and investing in good assets are a lifetime journey. Let’s unpack in some detail the type of assets that put money in your pocket. Bank deposits: This is an asset that is familiar to most people. The common types of bank deposits are call deposit, notice deposit, fixed deposit and money market account. Bank deposits quote an interest rate and pay you a monthly interest, as your money stays invested. The interest rate is linked to the Reserve Bank’s Repo rate. When the Repo rate goes up, the interest you receive increases. When the Repo rate goes down, the interest you receive decreases. Click here to watch the episode on bank savings and investment products RSA Retail Savings Bond: This is a type of government bond offered to the general public, the term is 2-, 3-, 5- and 10 years. The interest rate is between 7.25% and 9.5%. Participation bond: Fedgroup is famous for offering this type of investment. A participation bond is a regulated collective investment scheme, it offers you an attractive fixed interest rate in a five-year term investment. Click here to watch the episode on Fedgroup Participation Bond Unit trusts: This is popular among retail investors and institutional investors alike. Unit trusts are also known as collective investment schemes in South Africa. They are registered, approved and regulated by the financial conduct regulatory FSCA. There are over 2,000 unit trusts in South Africa and over 120,000 funds in the world. In North America and other parts of the world, unit trusts are known as mutual funds. Unit trusts are a convenient way to invest, offering investors many choices, ranging from local equities, offshore equities, property, bonds, income, money market, regions, industries such as technology, single country. Exchanged traded funds (ETFs): It has gained huge popularity and attracted a lot of money around the world over the last twenty years. It is also growing fast in South Africa. Exchanged traded funds are like unit trusts, the main differences are they are listed on a stock exchange, so it is freely traded throughout the day, its price fluctuates during the day, and it generally follows some type of benchmark. These funds are rules based, or passively managed, and they have lower fund management fees compared to actively managed unit trust funds. Shares: You can buy shares using a stockbroking account. When you buy shares in a company, you become a shareholder of that company, even if you only own one share. You are entitled to receive dividends declared and paid by the company. If the company does well and it share price rises, you benefit from the capital gain. Pension fund/provident fund: If your company or business has a pension/provident fund, your contributions and your employer’s contributions are invested in Regulation 28 compliant funds, to grow your retirement savings. Preservation fund: When you leave an employer, it is advisable to preserve your pension/provident fund money in a preservation fund, to preserve tax benefits and continue to invest your money, instead of cashing money out. Most product providers now require a minimum sum of R50,000. You can transfer your money from your pension/provident fund to a preservation fund. Tax-free investment: This is an investment vehicle that allows you to invest tax-free. You may invest up to R36,000 in a tax-free investment account in a tax year, all your growth within the account is tax free for life. This is what I recommend to most clients as their first investment building blocks. Click here to watch the episode on tax-free investment Retirement annuity: Retirement annuity allows you to contribute to a fund pre-retirement and enjoys tax deductions, to build up your retirement capital. All your investment growth before retirement age is tax free. Your contributions are invested in Regulation 28 compliant funds. Cick here to watch the episode on retirement annuity Endowment: This is an investment product with an initial five-year term. You take out an endowment with a life insurance company. Your investment growth is taxed within the product, the life insurance company will calculate the tax applicable and deduct the tax from your growth. When you withdraw or surrender your policy, you will receive the money tax free. Endowments have certain tax advantages for high-income individuals. It also offers protection against creditors. Click here to watch the episode on endowment Living annuity: When a member's pension fund, provident fund or retirement annuity fund reaches retirement age, he is obliged to use part of the proceeds (a minimum of two thirds) to invest in an annuity, to receive a monthly income. In a living annuity, an investor essentially has a retirement investment account. He can invest in a portfolio of unit trusts, and he can determine the level of drawdown to provide him with an income. The annual drawdown rate can be between 2.5% and 17.5%. Life annuity: With life annuity, a person enters into a contract with a life insurance company. In return for a lump sum paid to the life insurance company, the life insurance company pays the person (life assured) a monthly income. The life insurance company guarantees that income until the life assured's death. Certain options can be effected at the outset, to prolong the payment period to the beneficiary. Alternative investment: An alternative investment is a financial asset that does not fall into one of the conventional investment categories. Conventional categories include stocks, bonds, and cash. Alternative investments include private equity or venture capital, hedge funds, managed futures, art and antiques, commodities, and derivatives contracts. Hedge funds: A hedge fund is an investment vehicle that caters to high-net-worth individuals, institutional investors, and other accredited investors. The term “hedge” is used because these funds historically focused on hedging risk by simultaneously buying and shorting assets in a long-short equity strategy. Section 12J investment: Section 12J of the Income Tax Act was introduced in 2009 by the South African Government to encourage South African taxpayers to invest in local companies and receive a 100% tax deduction of the value of their investment. The investor receives a share certificate and a tax certificate, allowing the invested amount to be deducted from the investor’s taxable income, in the year the investment is made. Gold and silver: Precious metals have been the store of value since the ancient of days. While it does not give you interest or pay you dividends, it protects you against inflation, or central banks unlimited money printing. You can buy gold and silver coins from reputable precious metals dealers online. Cash-generating business: Starting your own business can be scary, but also exciting. Businesses have proven a sure way for many people to generate wealth, for some generational wealth. By having your own business, working on it with your sweat, tears and grit, you benefit from the fruit of your Labour. There is no guarantee for success. In fact, statistics show that 95% of businesses fail within the first five years. With the right mindset, goal setting, planning, the right mentors and advisors, you can greatly improve your chance of success. REITS: REITs, or real estate investment trusts, are companies that own or finance income-producing real estate across a range of property sectors. These real estate companies have to meet a number of requirements to qualify as REITs. Most REITs trade on major stock exchanges, and they offer a number of benefits to investors. Buy-to-let property: Buy-to-let refers to the purchase of a property specifically to let out, that is to rent it out. A buy-to-let mortgage is a mortgage loan specifically designed for this purpose. Buy-to-let properties are usually residential but the term also encompasses student property investments and hotel room investments. Cryptocurrency: In this day and age, we have to consider cryptocurrency as a viable asset. While it is highly speculative, it is backed by a very useful Techonology called Blockchain. Given people’s suspicion of governments and central banks, there has been a move to decentralize currencies and financial transactions. There are thousands of crypto currencies in the world, while many of them are just scams, the main ones like Bitcoin, Etherium, Binance Coin, Ripple and USD Coin look like they are here to stay. As you can see, there are a plethora of asset choices and investment options. Take time to do you research to properly understand an asset class. Work with a qualified financial advisor as your financial coach, to decide on which assets may be best for you to accumulate. It is not one size fits all. it is not one asset class fits all. For all clients, I advise them to diversify across a few asset classes. Last month I talked about Step 4 - Keep a record of your spend. Let's continue with Step 5 - Invest 15% of your earnings. Robert Kiyosaki, a leading personal finance and business coach of our time, advocates "Pay yourself first". People who choose to pay themselves first allocate money to the asset column of their balance sheet before they’ve paid their monthly expenses. Essentially, you set aside a specific amount of money right off the bat, and then live off what’s leftover. And that’s how wealth grows. In South Africa, this means putting 15% of your monthly pay into a retirement annuity, a tax-free investment, an offshore investment, or getting a business education or subscription. Let's unpack this. When I have my first meeting with new financial planning clients, one of the areas we cover is Personal Balance Sheet. Personal Balance Sheet essentially is a list of a person's assets and liabilities. At the end we calculate a person's Net Asset Value (NAV) by subtracting liabilities from assets. Many people have no ideas of what are assets, what are liabilities, and the differences between the two. They work hard, they try to get a better income. After many years, they wonder why they have little to show for it, and where money has gone to. They are busy paying everyone else, the taxman, banks, credit card companies, municipality, Eskom, DSTV, cellular providers. Then they have no money to pay themselves. So they go through their life, by the time they get to 40s or 50s, then realise they don't have enough saved up for retirement. It is important for us to instill in our teenage children, young adults the importance of savings, that they should start saving 15% of their income when they start their first job or business venture. Don't rely on what your employer would do for you. In the past, many corporates in South Africa would provide generous employee benefits, including a pension after retirement. Due to changes in accounting standards, increased competition and tougher economic environment, many corporates have cut back on employee benefits. Just about all have moved to Defined-Contribution arrangements, they no longer guarantee employees a pension after retirement. We need to educate our children (and ourselves) to create that financial nest egg ourselves. No one else is going to do it for us. Not the employer, not the government, not your parents. Starting early is key. If a young person in their twenties start their first job, and save 15% of their income every month, invest wisely, then by the time she gets to 65, she should have built up a retirement capital, a sum of money to draw an income from. What we call "comfortable retirement." Below is a chart illustrating a 25-year old earning R40,000 a month, saving 15% of her income per month (i.e. R6,000). Assume her income increases at 5% per annum, and she keeps her savings rate at 15%. Also assume she gets 8% return on her investments. At 65, the projected capital she will built up is R37 million. If she delays the decision to invest until age 35, i.e. she only starts saving 10 years later, then at 65, the projected capital she will build up is R23.4 million. See the chart below. While still significant, it is 37% less than if she had started at age 25. So a 10-year delay will cause her wealth at age 65 to reduce by 37%! Investment products for long-term investmentYou may consider using the following products for investing for long-term: Tax-free investment account: while limited to R3,000 per month or R36,000 per year contribution, you invest tax-free, and you can invest up to 100% offshore. Watch this video to get the basics of a Tax-Free Investment account: Retirement annuity: This is designed for saving for retirement, offers great tax benefits. Watch this video to understand the basics of a Retirement Annuity: Offshore investment: This allows you to invest in hard currencies such as the US Dollar, Euros and Pounds, by converting your Rands into these currencies and investing offshore. This is great for diversification, and accessing investment opportunities not available in South Africa. Unit trusts: This allows you to invest in a wide range of collective investment schemes. You should invest in a number of funds for diversification, and your portfolio should be suitable for your risk profile. Endowment policy: This forces you to invest for a minimum period of five years, investment growth is taxed within the policy, so when it pays out you receive the proceeds tax free. Watch this video to understand the basics of an endowment policy: Contact us today at service@daberistic.com if you would like to speak to a Financial Advisor, on how best you can invest 15% of your money, to create your wealth.
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