What is an Approved Retirement Fund / Approved Minimum Retirement Fund?
An Approved Retirement Fund (ARF) is a personal retirement fund where you can keep your money invested after retirement, as a lump sum. You can withdraw from it regularly to give yourself an income, on which you pay income tax, PRSI and Universal Social Charge (USC).
It allows you to retain ownership of your funds. An ARF / AMRF is established with your current insurance provider or another provider on the market if you so wish. These funds are then invested in much the same fashion as your original pension (but we recommend a conservative investment approach at this stage of your life). You then have the option of taking income from the ARF fund as and when you see fit (subject to a minimum of 4% per annum from age 60).
The obvious advantage here is deciding what income you want to take each month / year, and being able to vary the income, and also the ability to pass the unspent portion of the ARF to your next of kin in the event you pass away. The disadvantage is that you spend it to quickly and end up for example at age 80 with nothing left. To consider what is right for you visit our page Annuity or Approved Retirement fund?
What is an Approved Minimum Retirement Fund (AMRF)?
There is a Revenue requirement that if you wish to establish an ARF and in circumstances whereby you do not satisfy the following criteria:
• You do not have an existing AMRF or
• You do not have guaranteed income (state pension or other annuity income) of more than €12,700 per annum.
Then you must use the first €63,500 of your residual fund to invest in an AMRF before the balance can be placed in an ARF.
An AMRF is similar to an ARF with the following differences:
• You can only draw 4% per annum maximum of the value of the AMRF each year until age 75. At age 75 the AMRF reverts to an ARF
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