One of the more controversial pension tax rules was slightly reformed in the Budget. The annual allowance effectively sets your tax efficient limit for the total amount of pension contributions that you and your employer can make in a tax year. If the limit is exceeded, then you essentially receive no tax relief on the [...]
The Bank of England’s 0.5% cut in its base rate to 0.25% on Budget Day (11 March) was far from being a complete surprise. The previous week had seen its US counterpart, the Federal Reserve, make its own 0.5% cut in response to worries about the impact of Covid-19 on the global economy. The Bank [...]
Data calculated from https://uk.investing.com/indices/major-indices 2020 started off well enough. Until the middle of February, most global share markets were flatlining as the year got under way. Then the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak suddenly expanded from a localised epidemic in Wuhan into a global issue. The reaction of most major stock markets was reminiscent of a certain [...]
With individual investors now exposed to direct marketing of some products, the UK financial regulator has spelled out which parts of the personal investment market it is most worried about. “Sustained low interest rates have suppressed returns in safer asset classes, resulting in many consumers deciding to take on more risk in the search for [...]
National Savings & Investments (NS&I) has announced interest rate cuts to most of its products. If NS&I did not exist, it is hard to imagine that it would be invented now. Once upon a time it was a useful way for the government to raise cheap money from the general public, whereas today it is [...]
Over the year, the total paid out in dividends by UK listed companies rose by 10.7% according to the Link Group, a leading firm of registrars. Inflation in 2019 was 1.3%, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to December 2019, and 2.2% on the still widely quoted Retail Prices Index (RPI) yardstick. As [...]
The government has published the revised level of state pensions and other benefits for 2020/21. But Britain remains last in the state pension league table. In April 2020, the new state pension will increase by 3.9% to £175.20 a week – £9,110 a year. The old state pension, which is payable to anyone who reached [...]
The new National Insurance Contributions (NICs) scales for 2020/21 were announced ahead of March’s Budget, with one slight surprise hidden in the numbers. Are NICs a tax? Over many years, Chancellors have tried to convince the public that they are not. It has always seemed easier to say that NICs are going up by 1% [...]
The intestacy rules for England and Wales have been amended. The intestacy rules automatically apply to the distribution of estates where there is no will. There are three different sets of rules in the UK: one for England and Wales, a similar set for Northern Ireland and a much more different set for Scotland. The [...]
What do you remember about the 2010s? A decade is a long time and a lot happens, but important details can be lost in the big headline moments. The one that has just ended makes the point. The 2010s started with Gordon Brown as prime minister and, four elections and two referendums later, closed with [...]
