It's been rather quiet around here about the new retirement annuity/pension fund laws? What does everyone think?
So you're able to put away 27.5% of your income before tax. I think that's huge. If you're paying 42% tax on your earnings it makes a massive difference really quickly.
It'll also be very useful to those have other sources of income. If you've got REITs or a paid up property, your dividends or rent payments are taxed just like income, so putting away 27.5% of everything you earn could actually take you down a tax bracket or two.
On the downside you're not allowed to take it all out at retirement, only a third, and the rest has to go to into an annuity. On the whole, probably not a bad thing for most people, though personally I'd rather not have an annuity and use that cash to increase investments in lower cost index funds.
Also there's a R350k limit, but if you can hit that you're probably not very concerned about your retirement in any case...