SIPP?

Onestepcloser

I know very little about pensions or investing but I'm reading up as much as I can although it's a struggle  to understand it.
I set up an isa with vanguard life strategy 100, due to kick in next month but I'm thinking I should maybe opened a SIPP instead to benefit from the tax benefits.

A few questions.
Do I need to say to my employer about deducting the money from my pay or does it happen on vanguards side when the direct debit starts?

Can I choose any of vanguards funds to invest in or limited to their retirement plans. Ideally I would like to 100%equities as I'm late in starting (42).

Do you think they will let me swap the Isa to a SIPP as I won't be able to release anymore funds for about a year (clearing some debt).

Apologies for the noob questions, really struggle with this stuff. 

Albermarle

Your employer should normally be offering a workplace pension anyway . Is this not the case or maybe did you opt out of it ?

Onestepcloser

I'm in the workplace pension and I put in 5% matching my employer.

zagfles

If you want a SIPP separate to this, it's nothing to do with your employer. You simply make contributions and the SIPP provider will claim basic rate tax relief. If you're a higher rate taxpayer you can claim extra relief. There are limits but unless you're putting large amounts in (eg 10's of thousands, or most of your salary) they're probably not of concern.

Onestepcloser

zagfles said:

If you want a SIPP separate to this, it's nothing to do with your employer. You simply make contributions and the SIPP provider will claim basic rate tax relief. If you're a higher rate taxpayer you can claim extra relief. There are limits but unless you're putting large amounts in (eg 10's of thousands, or most of your salary) they're probably not of concern.

Perfect so set it up and vanguard will sort it out. Not 10's of thousands unfortunately.

Brynsam

Onestepcloser said:

I set up an isa with vanguard life strategy 100, due to kick in next month but I'm thinking I should maybe opened a SIPP instead to benefit from the tax benefits.

Do you think they will let me swap the Isa to a SIPP as I won't be able to release anymore funds for about a year (clearing some debt).

It's not so much a case of swapping as ceasing to contribute to the ISA and contributing to a SIPP instead if that's what you want to do. You will need to cancel any direct debit set up in favour of the ISA and set one up for your SIPP (even if the ISA and the SIPP are offered by the same provider).

LHW99

Brynsam said:

Onestepcloser said:

I set up an isa with vanguard life strategy 100, due to kick in next month but I'm thinking I should maybe opened a SIPP instead to benefit from the tax benefits.

Do you think they will let me swap the Isa to a SIPP as I won't be able to release anymore funds for about a year (clearing some debt).

It's not so much a case of swapping as ceasing to contribute to the ISA and contributing to a SIPP instead if that's what you want to do. You will need to cancel any direct debit set up in favour of the ISA and set one up for your SIPP (even if the ISA and the SIPP are offered by the same provider).

Although you could add money from the ISA to your SIPP? - II allows this as long as it doesn't take you over the allowed amount

Albermarle

Onestepcloser said:

I'm in the workplace pension and I put in 5% matching my employer.

Why not just increase the contributions to the workplace pension instead of opening a separate SIPP ?
Many workplace pensions ( not all) are actually OK .