SPOUSAL SPLITS
Pensions authorities are concerned at the apparently legitimate way that former Anglo Irish Bank Chairman Sean Fitzpatrick was able to split his €3.7 million pension with his wife Catriona, says the Sunday Tribune.
Tag: Pensions
TAXING PENSIONS
The €2.7 billion paid by the government to retired public sector workers will have to be taxed further and the Croke Park agreement will become null and void as the price Ireland must pay to stay out of the European bailout fund, a leading credit ratings analyst has told The Sunday Tribune.
PAT KENNY’S PENSION
Broadcaster Pat Kenny’s pension fund has been hammered by the collapse in global property markets and Irish banking shares, he told The Sunday Times.
Kenny, 62, is an independent contractor and does not have an RTE pension to fall back on.
“My pension, like everyone else’s, has been devastated,” he said. “We were all told property and shares were safe places to invest. There is virtually no-one who has not lost out.”
Kenny and Gay Byrne are joint investors in one project that will be taken over by NAMA later this year. They invested in the Four Seasons hotel in Budapest as part of a syndicate put together by financier Derek Quinlan. That syndicate now owes Anglo Irish Bank €30m.
He also invested in AIB and Bank of Ireland shares for many years.
“They were prudent investments. I tried to spread the risk around and, lo and behold, you get caught.”
Meanwhile, The Sunday Independent highlights one group of “retirees” who won’t have too many financial worries. Four TDs who have declared their intention not to stand at the next election – Tom Kitt, Mary Upton, Liz McManus and Olwyn Enright – will share a lump-sum payment plus pension worth around €12m.
Under the current system, the four will receive a termination allowance equivalent to two months’ salary. They will then receive a further €36,906 over the next six months followed by payments between €20,000 and €32,000 until the termination payment runs out. A total of €1.1m.
Based on current pay levels, they will each receive a tax-free pension lump sum of €147,636 and then every month for the rest of their lives those with more than 20 years’ service will receive half of their current annual salary of €98,000.
Nice work if you can get it.
PENSIONS
Almost 50% of people nearing retirement don’t expect to be able to maintain their current standard of living after they pack in the day job, according to a survey by investment company Axa Financial reported in The Sunday Business Post.
BP
Anyone tempted to indulge in schadenfreude at the discomfort being felt by the top brass at BP over the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico should think again.
PENSIONS
Companies may soon have to hand over unclaimed pensions to the Government under proposed reforms, The Sunday Tribune reports.
The Government is apparently considering a scheme similar to the Dormant Accounts Fund, through which financial institutions and An Post have transferred almost €550m to the NTMA since it was set up in 2003.
“Consideration will be given to the establishment of a state-managed fund into which companies who cannot trace former employees would lodge the accrued benefits,” according to briefing notes drawn up by the Department of Social Protection. “It is envisaged that this could be modelled on the Dormant Accounts Fund.”
FINGLETON’S GIFT TO CHARITY
Michael Fingleton, the former boss of the beleaguered Irish Nationwide Building Society, made most of the Sunday papers. In what the Sunday Independent called “a dramatic development”, a close associate of
UNIVERSITIES IGNORE GOVT DIRECTIVE
Five Irish universities have ignored a Government directive to cut back on all discretionary payments to staff by “gifting” free pension years costing tens of millions of euro to academics and others. The universities have given 748 free pension years to 200 retiring employees, in addition to their regular pensions.
NATIONAL PENSIONS FRAMEWORK
The National Pensions Framework was published by the Department of Social and Family Affairs last week. Key recommendations made include:
- An effective tax relief on personal pension contributions at 33%
- A mandatory approach to pension scheme membership
- A cap of €200,000 on the tax free lump sum
- Increasing the state pension age
PENSIONS
The government’s new pensions’ roadmap comes under scrutiny in most of the Sunday newspapers and it appears its chosen vehicle may be as reliable as a dodgy brakes. A consensus is emerging that the proposed changes will keep accountants very busy over the next few years as people scramble to make sense of the changes.
The Sunday Times reports that if executives are prepared to forego future pay rises they would still be entitled to tax relief at the current rate of 41%, rather than the proposed new rate of 33% from 2014.