USS Growth Fund performance vs Vanguard passive global fund performance

Screaming_Flamingo

If it helps, I moved all my USS funds from Growth to Global Equity a while ago. No fees were taken, everything went very smoothly.

Odd that you don't get salary sacrifice with your employer for AVCs - you should raise it with them, as they will save money too if they offer it. No harm in asking. 

Southend_2

Screaming_Flamingo said:

If it helps, I moved all my USS funds from Growth to Global Equity a while ago. No fees were taken, everything went very smoothly.

Odd that you don't get salary sacrifice with your employer for AVCs - you should raise it with them, as they will save money too if they offer it. No harm in asking. 

Some employers just won't do sal sac for AVCs for some reason. I've asked twice over the years. The first time, they said it was due to HMRC rules, which i was 99% sure is not correct. The second time they said it was due to the nature of their agreement with USS, which sounds more plausible. Not sure why they wouldn't want to look to change it though. 

dllive

Yes, Ive asked twice too. They said that contributions over teh threshold are salary sacrificed, but not AVCs. Im going to email the finance department and ask if theres a particular reason why it isnt salary sacrificed. 

PS
I moved all my holding to Global Equities, and all done very smoothly and quickly. (from what I could tell). Now its using the 'Let Me Do It' strategy, I can fine tune future contributions across different funds, which is useful.

dllive

Ive just heard back. Finance have said "The only salary sacrifice AVC we offer is the 1% AVC, all the others are on a NET pay arrangement so you are still receiving tax relief just not the NI relief."

swindiff

Maybe the next question should be why have they made the decision to pay more national insurance contributions than they are required to.  The academic sector are not exactly flush with cash atm.

Southend_2

dllive said:

Ive just heard back. Finance have said "The only salary sacrifice AVC we offer is the 1% AVC, all the others are on a NET pay arrangement so you are still receiving tax relief just not the NI relief."

Thanks for the update. If you manage to find out the reason behind it, do let us know please.

dllive

Ive just received an answer to my question (theyre very responsive/helpful). Theyve said "While there are the savings on NI for the employer a salary sacrifice scheme involve a lot of administration, and it can be tricky to set them up.  So, while on paper they seem like an obvious way forward there are a lot of requirements behind the scenes which the employees are not aware of.  That said, it is not to say we would never do this in the future, we just don’t currently offer it." 
So, make of that what you will. Not much I can do about it I suppose, but at least I know. It is odd though because I do work for a very prominent institution, so I would have presumed/expected them to take advantage of the SS scheme.

Southend_2

dllive said:

Ive just received an answer to my question (theyre very responsive/helpful). Theyve said "While there are the savings on NI for the employer a salary sacrifice scheme involve a lot of administration, and it can be tricky to set them up.  So, while on paper they seem like an obvious way forward there are a lot of requirements behind the scenes which the employees are not aware of.  That said, it is not to say we would never do this in the future, we just don’t currently offer it." 
So, make of that what you will. Not much I can do about it I suppose, but at least I know. It is odd though because I do work for a very prominent institution, so I would have presumed/expected them to take advantage of the SS scheme.

Thanks for sharing that reply. It sounds like they think the cost of admin would outweigh any savings. Presumably my employer made the same calculation.