Once we retire our income levels drop to some meagre levels. This can be a huge blow for anyone who had not planned for this time and maybe still has obligations such as paying some kids college fees. However, insurance firms will now provide you with options of taking care of such times by providing you with fixed annuity options. Therefore, what does this investment involve?
This is an investment, which involves signing a contract with some financial institution for you to deposit a principal amount and they will pay you regularly once you retire up to your time of death. These payments will usually be of a predetermined amount. Whatever the amount you deposit into this account will be paid back via these periodic payments. Moreover, this principal will be earning interests for you starting the day that you credit your account until end of payments. You financial institution will also pay you part of this earned interest. There are two different options of distributing these payments.
One of them is the immediate fixed annuity option. This is whereby you deposit some huge amount of money into an investment account. Your own insuring firm starts paying you soon after this deposit for the duration that will last until when you receive both the principal and earned interest. Therefore, whenever you receive some payment your balance continues to earn interest. This investment may best suit people who have not had the opportunity if investing while they were young but still want to invest.
However, if you are still young and have some years before you retire, the deferred option is more likely a better choice to consider. In this case, you can pay your principal deposit in instalments up to the time that you will retire. However, if you wish to make a single huge deposit your custodian will also accept it. Another feature with this scheme is that you will not be able to make any withdrawal or receive payments before your retirement. In the event whereby this is extremely necessary, you can make such a withdrawal but there will be hefty tax penalties. However, there are some situations which the tax code can exempt you from these penalties.
When you own some deferred fixed annuity, then you can pay for a dependants’ fees for college education so long as he or she has qualified to one of such institutions. The other case would be to buy your first home. Apart from these advantages, the greatest one would be the absence of taxes on all interests earned before retirement and before any withdrawal. Moreover, when you start receiving payments from this investment scheme, you will only be taxed for the earned interest. Therefore, your principal amount will not be subjected to taxes.
Some people will wonder if they can invest in these schemes. Well, if you want to have an assured source of income after your retirement or you are a person who does not like putting in high-risk schemes, then this type of annuity may be a good fit for you. In this case, your interest rates will not depend on how well the stock market is doing because you will have the assurance of some minimum rate despite these trends. Moreover, this scheme may be better than depositing your money in a savings account. This is because interest from such an account will be taxed whereas that from your annuity account will not be subjected to such taxes. Therefore, your money may have the opportunities to increase at much faster rates.
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