Ros Altmann said private pensions are not a good idea for many basic rate taxpayers

Paul_Herring

jamesd wrote: »

The borrowing requirements for the 401(k) may be an advantage compared to the ISA if it protects the funds from unemployment and bankruptcy by not making borrowing mandatory, whereas here you have to spend the ISA money. I haven't looked into how the 401(k) is affected by those issues.

http://www.moranlaw.net/retirement.htm

The Supreme Court held that retirement plans that have a legally enforceable anti alienation clause (a provision preventing creditors from attaching the retirement funds of a debtor) are not property of the bankruptcy estate and thus are not subject to the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court and cannot be accessed to pay creditors.

Nearly all pensions and 401K savings plans that are qualified under ERISA, the federal pension savings act, have an anti alienation clause that excludes them from the bankruptcy estate.

An exception to this rule is retirement plans that have only one participant, such as single employee corporate plans, and some other plans originating in self employment. These plans may be property of the estate. They may be vulnerable to creditors unless subject to an exemption. Get good professional advice if this describes a significant asset of yours.

Milarky

Paul_Herring wrote: »

[ISAs] don't affect contributions based JSA, but if you have more than 16K in ISAs then you're not going to be getting any income based JSA until you've spent down to that level. If that 16K+ was in a pension fund instead, you would be eligible for IB JSA from the start.)

I didn't know it had gone up from £3K-£8K (Clearly it has done having checked the link) on the capital side, so when did that change?