Excerpt from The Complete KiwiSaver: Which Assets Are for You? This week, Mary Holm’s Q&A column is replaced by an excerpt from her latest book, “The Complete KiwiSaver”. The principles she discusses here apply not just to KiwiSaver but to investing in general. Her Q&A column will resume next week.
Q&As: Couple struggling with rental property should put it on the market; Did the issuers of perpetual preference shares adequately warn investors that their value could fall considerably?; The choices for a KiwiSaver who moves overseas.
Q&As: Independent fee-charging advisers — the ones readers should be able to count on — to be listed in this column; Are accountants obliged to minimise tax, and to not dob in their clients to Inland Revenue?; Contributing to adult children’s KiwiSaver accounts a good idea, even if they end up losing some of it in a marriage break-up. Also: An invitation to attend a breakfast representing investors.
Fund performance tables can do more harm than good. Some figures I saw recently strengthened my resolve to steer people away from KiwiSaver performance comparisons.
Q&As: Tax agent and Inland Revenue differ on treatment of investors selling rental properties; Two big issues lead to bad financial advice results; Is this column dominated by KiwiSaver?; Generally, don’t put lump sums into KiwiSaver.
Long tie-up in KiwiSaver no big deal. A Canterbury reader is concerned about whether to recommend KiwiSaver to his daughters. “For someone in their early twenties, the monies invested in KiwiSaver — even if a contribution holiday is taken — will be tied up for some 40 odd years,” he writes.
Q&As: A reader challenges my advice last week about postponing a first home purchase for three years; How to get around the income cap on the KiwiSaver first home subsidy; How to get around the three-year requirement for KiwiSaver first home assistance; Another reader challenges me — on my advice on whether to sell a Mangere Bridge house or a Whangamata house; The merits of coin tossing; Maybe Lotto will make reader’s decision easier.
Q&As: Couple wondering whether to buy a home now or in three years could gain thousands from joining KiwiSaver; You can’t get in early on the KiwiSaver first home withdrawal and subsidy.
Q&As: Is it better to sell a Mangere Bridge property or a Whangamata property?; Reader who switched to riskier fund, and saw immediate loss, wonders if she should switch back; Share markets have performed really well lately; Two letters about KiwiSaver and “total remuneration”, in which employees more or less pay their own employer contributions.
Q&As: One reader loathes KiwiSaver, while the next one loves it. But both don’t fully understand it; A former hippie gets a bit carried away.