Turbo-charge your pension contributions
We are DBSSAS Experts
WBR Group writes more SSASs as DB schemes than any other provider. Our chief actuary, David Downie is the architect of the DBSSAS and has worked extensively with HMRC to ensure it meets all legal and governance requirements.
A DBSSAS has the same wider investment powers of a traditional SSAS including commercial property investment and secured loans to your business.
A DBSSAS uses the rules relating to defined benefit schemes and our actuaries calculate a permissible target pension from which a contribution is agreed. The contribution is usually an allowable deduction for corporation tax in the hands of the sponsoring employer. With the current rate of corporation tax at 25%, this makes our DB scheme even more attractive.
Directors who have restrictions in the DC environment, such as the Money Purchase Annual Allowance (MPAA) or because they are high earners with a tapered Annual Allowance can benefit from the defined benefit rules.
Investment Surplus
A unique feature of our SSAS defined benefit pension scheme is that investment growth that is above the actuarial assumptions (called a surplus) can be used by the trustees to fund benefits for new members (for example, other members of the family).
Other benefits and features of a DBSSAS
As well as these attractive benefits, a DBSSAS has many other features which are summarised below:
- Allows catch-up for lost years of pension funding – known as Carry Forward using the same methodology of target pension
- Used to accumulate larger pension funds over a shorter time period when compared to defined contribution pensions
- Assists in the accelerated funding for a specific investment such as commercial property purchase.
- In the following respects a DBSSAS mirrors its DC sibling:
- Funds in scheme can be pooled with up to 11 others to assist investment gearing
- Identical range of investment options
- Scheme borrowing to gear up by a further 50%
- Secured lending to the sponsoring employer
Real Client Examples Showing How DBSSAS Can Assist
If you have any enquiries relating to our SSAS Services, please don’t hesitate to get in touch directly with either Alan Godbeer, Peter Collier or David Downie, via the contact form below.
Peter Collier
Director of Marketing and Distribution
Peter Collier
Director of Marketing and Distribution
Peter is Director of Marketing and Distribution for WBR Group. He fell into pensions in 1997, after being invited to join the board of the company that looked after his SSAS, at the time he exited that business.
Since then, Peter has held senior roles in marketing, business development and strategy within wealth management. He was head of Marketing Strategy at the private bank, Brown Shipley from 2002 to 2012. As Business Development Director at Hurley Partners (latterly Mattioli Woods), Peter was responsible for intermediary and direct sales as well as working on significant corporate projects.
Being a SSAS client for over 30 years, Peter is fully conversant with the product’s benefits and operation. In his time in wealth management he was a regulated adviser and a member of the Securities Institute. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant ‘a long while ago’ and is therefore an FCA.
In his spare time Peter and his wife Melanie look after their small-holding, various animals and orchards, as well as acting as a chauffeur to his daughter! He is a lifelong Spurs supporter and also an avid golf & cricket watcher, and sometimes player.
David Downie
Managing Director – SSAS & Actuarial
David Downie
Managing Director – SSAS & Actuarial
David left the sunny shores of Trinidad on a scholarship to pursue his education in the UK. He qualified as a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and has accrued over 30 years of experience in Pensions & Actuarial Consultancy and holds the Scheme Actuary certificate.
A pioneer, he developed the defined benefit small self-administered scheme and designed and created WBR’s DB SSAS which has proved a very successful alternative to a traditional SSAS given the right circumstances. David also gives time to many pension and actuarial industry committees and working parties. He advises Trustee Boards of larger corporate pension schemes and funeral plan trusts and assists solicitors when pension splitting on divorce is required, including providing independent expert reports for the courts.
David continues to support the Soca-Warriors the T&T national football team and with his wife has set up a small Christian charity – Advent Worldwide – to provide financial help with gifts of love and compassion to individuals and for ministry training.
Alan Godbeer
Sales Director
Alan Godbeer
Sales Director
Alan has been in Financial Services for more than 30 years at some of the UK’s principal life offices and specialist pension providers.
He has been involved with helping advisers offer member-directed pensions for a long time and is one of the few who has considerable knowledge and experience of DB SSASs.
As Sales Director at WBR Group, he has an extensive, national network of Financial Advisers and is the first point of contact for them when it comes to our SSAS and actuarial propositions.