Q&As: Don’t miss KiwiSaver tax credits — and why kids do miss out; How to calculate tax credits for new KiwiSavers and those turning 18 or 65; Savings goal from adviser looks too high; Please email to say how well you’re doing in KiwiSaver.
Q&As: Reader has same credit card trouble as last week’s correspondent…; …And last week’s correspondent finds the remedy doesn’t work; Another reader has a suggestion on credit card limits; And yet another one says ‘Fire your bank’; Thousands paying too much tax in KiwiSaver; Know your rights when dealing with financial service providers.
What savers and investors are entitled to. In your dealings with KiwiSaver providers, financial advisers, banks, peer-to-peer lenders, equity crowdfunding platforms and others providing financial services, the Financial Markets Authority says you are entitled to: Competence; To be treated fairly and honestly; To be informed; To know how much you are paying; To have your problems and complaints dealt with properly. What does this amount to? For more info see tinyurl.com/NZentitlements.
Q&As: Live well on $15,000 a year in Thailand; Reader questions last week’s correspondent’s dividend income…; …While another reader explains it, and wonders about adviser role; Better to read the column regularly than to chance upon it in some packaging!
Q&As: A different Auckland housing option: live on the water; Reservations about young landlord’s success; 2 Q&As on whether Bonus Bonds are a good deal; Worries about living in a leasehold property; Have your say about advisers.
Q&As: Banks give teenagers credit too easily; Credit union offers lower-interest deal to credit card borrowers; Retiree “invests in people”; 55-year-old spending while she’s able; Financial adviser struggles with how others do it.
Q&As: Banks shouldn’t favour new customers, but reader shouldn’t have big credit card debt; Gold doing OK in NZ dollars, but that’s not the point; Why advisers tend to favour low-risk investments and why they shouldn’t; Banks have a wide range of financial advisers.
Q&As: Gold bugs disappear now that their price has plunged; 2 Q&As about older bank customers getting poor service; How to judge your financial adviser; 76-year-old doesn’t have to reduce risk.
Q&As: Couple’s rental property plans riskier than they might think; What happened at Milford, and how are KiwiSaver members placed?; Bank adviser may regret lack of interest in man in his 90s; Hard to be a young, independent adviser.
Q&As: Financial advisers fail to give good advice on risk to woman in 20s; If a bank fails, a percentage of all accounts would be frozen…; And only a small amount in transaction accounts would be exempt; Reader is disappointed that I didn’t discuss the tax on gains from property.