Blog
In July 2020, the Chancellor asked the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) to review Capital Gains Tax (CGT). The aim was to ‘identify opportunities relating to administrative and technical issues as well as areas where the present rules can distort behaviour or do not meet their policy intent’. The review has attracted strong engagement from
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The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused many households to reassess their financial defences with the purchase of protection insurance. The diagnosis of a serious illness can mean a tough time for your health and your wealth. If you were to become critically ill and could not earn a living, would your family cope financially? Our
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It is always important to manage expectations when investing. We often get questions about whether there is an explicit time someone must invest for how accessible the money is. How long do I have to invest for? If you are investing in an investment account or an ISA, then technically you could invest the money
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A new report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has shown pension saving has crashed among the self-employed. What does it say? Back in 1998, just below half (48%) of the self-employed paid into a private pension. By 2018 this had plummeted to just 16%. The contrast with regular employees, because of auto-enrolment, is
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Employers can pay employees up to a maximum of £6 per week tax-free, to cover additional costs they may have incurred because of working from home. Where employers have not paid their employees the home expenses payment, individuals can claim this tax relief through a new online portal. More than 54,800 claims have been made
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NHS Pensions Savings Statements are prompting enquiries on annual allowance charges. Here is a reminder of the special provisions that apply to annual allowance charges of NHS clinicians in England and Wales for the 2019/20 tax year. Many will have recently received Pensions Savings Statements for tax year 2019/20 and may have questions about their annual
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I have always been passionate about helping people feel more financially confident and achieve financial security. What this can be boiled down to is increasing financial wellbeing. The Financial Wellbeing Book, published in 2016, laid out five parts to financial wellbeing: A clear path to identifiable objectives Control of daily finances Ability to cope with
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Many investors are worried about the US election’s effect on the stock market. One school of thought is a Biden victory could lead to measures that would hit businesses. Another asserts the stock market prefers Republican victories. What does the data say? The logic of efficient markets is that anticipated events do not impact prices.
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The Government has rejected the Public Accounts Committee (PAC)’s proposal that HMRC should evaluate pensions tax relief. The concern was HRMC did not understand the impact of some of the UK’s largest tax reliefs which includes pension tax relief. The committee called for a formal review, but the Government disagreed. They pointed to several recent consultations
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The pace of the global economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic appears uneven. Recent US economic data has been at the optimistic end of expectations. However, activity in the UK, where Brexit looms large again, has lagged forecasts. The risks of a second Covid-19 wave (and, potentially, more severe lockdowns) are growing. But so too
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