OUR SPECIALITIES
Last Will and Testament
One of the most important tools to your personal estate planning is a properly drawn up Last Will and Testament.
We work in conjunction with Sentinel Advisory Services and Standard Bank Executors and Trustees in recording your wishes clearly and ensuring that all the possible legal caveats are covered.
Sentinel Advisory Services and Standard Bank Executors and Trustees also offer safe custody of your original document providing you with peace of mind.
Life Cover
It is never something that any individual wants to think about but it is a means of ensuring that your family or dependants are financially secure in the event of your death or disability.
Through the implementation of this benefit an individual’s estate or beneficiaries will receive a lump sum capital pay-out, which would provide for needs such as debt repayment, future family funding requirements and the provision of estate liquidity requirements (execution fees, estate duties and transfer duties).
Group Risk Benefits
In addition to forming a retirement vehicle such as a Pension or Provident Fund, a company can offer their employees a variety of risk benefits.
These include group life cover, income replacement benefit, capital disability, dread disease cover and funeral cover.
The advantage to adding these additional benefits is that the individual risk is spread over a larger base and therefore members receive more competitive rates than having separate personal policies.
Retirement Annuities
In our opinion, the retirement annuity is the primary retirement funding vehicle that all individuals should include in their portfolio.
It can be used in conjunction with corporate pension and provident funds; although the effect of tax must be considered.
The National Treasury has ensured that this vehicle is administered with favourable tax treatment, to motivate the individual South African to accelerate their retirement funding rates.
Disability Cover
In our experience this disability cover is often overlooked, which could have a devastating impact on the individual and their respective family’s needs.
On disablement and the inability to earn an income, this benefit would provide either a lump sum or a monthly income benefit to a specified age.
It is also important to consider the long term impact of inflation on the benefits.
Dread disease cover provides a lump sum pay-out based on the severity of the condition diagnosed, and this benefit is aimed at assisting you with the associated medical bills which may not be fully covered by your medical aid.
According to statistics from life companies, up to 80% of all pay-outs are due to the following conditions: cancer, coronary heart bypass procedures, heart attacks or strokes.
Please note that the pay-out percentages vary between assurance companies based on their definitions.
When you resign from an employer who offered either a Pension or Provident Fund benefit, it is highly advisable to preserve the assets that you have accumulated.
This can be done by transferring the balance accrued to either a Preservation Pension Fund or a Preservation Provident Fund depending on the type of fund you belonged to.
The transfer is done on a tax neutral basis and the investment can be actively managed with the help of your financial advisor.
Unit Trusts
Unit trust investments provide an investor with a wide range of solutions depending on what their goals and objectives are.
If correctly structured, unit trusts can provide flexibility, liquidity, tax efficiency (due to differing sources of income and gains, ensuring maximum use of the individual’s tax deductions), transparency and cost efficiency.
Pension Funds
Establishing a group benefit such as a Pension Fund will provide more benefits to your workforce. A Pension Fund allows both the employer and the employee to contribute towards the employee’s retirement in a tax efficient manner.
All contributions made by the employer to a Pension Fund are tax deductible and the employee enjoys a similar benefit limited to 7.50% of his/her remuneration.
At retirement, the employee can take only 1/3rd of the benefit as a cash portion (which will be taxed according to the relevant tax table) and has to invest 2/3rd of the funds into an annuity which will provide a pension to the individual.
As with forming a Pension Fund, the establishment of a Provident Fund will ensure that your employees enjoy the additional advantage of a company-driven retirement scheme.
A Provident Fund provides only a tax deduction to the contributions made by the employer. The employee benefits from the ability to cash in 100% of the funds accumulated upon retirement.
This full benefit will be taxed according to the applicable tax table.
Provident Funds
