Self Assessed Tax Payers Watch Out For This
September 8, 2008 at 5:04 pm
If you’re self assessed for tax, then you’ll know that you have to pay up to the Revenue by end October. Because I have such a fantastic accountant who is motivated by his wish not to have me moaning and giving out about large amounts leaving my bank account, I was recently advised to make a payment to my pension fund in order to relieve the pain at end October.
I have a pension set up with Eagle Star. Last year it transpired that they set up two accounts for me – one for the initial opening amount, and one for the monthly payments. I had this out with them last year, but failed to get anywhere. I know they set up multiple accounts because it benefits them, but I just had to leave it. [When talking at length to financial people I feel my life force seeping out of me...]
This recent cheque I sent to them had my policy number on it and no mention of financial advisors anywhere. It was an unsolicited cheque sent to them. So what did the chancers do?
They have gone and set up another new account ‘for me’ and have paid close to €1000 to my financial advisor.
I am not happy. I will not accept this. It’s a typical example of kickbacks within the financial industry. Most people wouldn’t bother to read as far as page 8 of the letter. But I did.
A phone call to Sinead O’Sullivan in customer services yielded no information. She was unable to tell me:
- If they had set up a new account
- If so, why they had done so?
- Why did they pay money to a financial advisor who had nothing to do with the transaction?
Sinead will be coming back to me tomorrow afternoon. But my advice to you if you are self-employed and making tax reducing pension payments, be careful – make sure the suits don’t use your hard earned cash to reward one of their own.
UPDATE
Eagle Star came back today and confirmed that they have put all the money into the one account, ie. no fees withdrawn. So a happy ending to the story. But make sure you read all the boring waffle you get in these kind of letters to ensure that all of your hard earned cash goes to fund that retirement in the sun!
Tags: Eagle Star, Pension Matters, Tax Matters
Comments (one response)
I had a similar issue – but I did get to the bottom of it. It’s actually all fine – although not the part about your financial advisor getting a 1k kickback for it – sure that would be your entire sum gone!
The way it works, from my understanding, is that any lump sum payments are given a new policy number, but it’s a sub-policy – and the reason this is done is so that you can take advantage of better interest payments on the lump in.
Eagle Star will explain far better than me, but from my own research – no extra fees should apply and it’s not a new policy, just a new number associated to the lump sum.
Just though I’d try to alleviate your fears as the same happened to me a while ago!
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