Author: MartinJP

233 – THE RISKS OF LATE ESTATE PLANNING.

Imagine you are named as the executor and a beneficiary of your wife’s wealthy aunt. You learn that she is suffering from terminal cancer and has ‘a very impaired lifespan’. What do you do? This is what happened in the case of Nader and others v Revenue & Customs. The executor/beneficiary, a Dr Nader, decided…

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232 – LOSING INTEREST IN CASH ISA’s

The popularity of cash ISAs is continuing to wane, according to new statistics from HMRC.With inflation persistently above interest rates, it’s not hard to imagine why. The bank of England recently increased the interest rate to 0.75%, A but inflation was 2.7% B in August 2018. This means, if you are holding cash in an…

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230 – THE BUDGET: AN END TO AUSTERITY?

The 2018 Budget - delivered on a Monday for the first time since 1962 - produced a number of surprises, not least some high-profile ‘giveaways’. Announcements in the Budget included: * A £650 increase in the personal allowance to £12,500 for 2019/20, the level originally pencilled in for 2020/21. * A £3,650 increase in the…

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229 – MORE PEOPLE WORKING PAST 65

Do you fancy working once you have reached age 65? The trend of rising employment levels is not limited to working-age people, according to the latest employment statistics from the Office for National Statistics. The results reveal a growing number of people have working beyond what is still often thought of as male pension age…

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228 – TRICK OR TREAT? THE CHANCELLOR CALLS THE 2018 BUDGET FOR LATE OCTOBER.

The 2018 Budget has been set for Monday 29 October, setting a deadline for speculation and proposals. Mr Hammond, however, has indicated that he won't end the long spell of austerity measures, despite improving public finances. Proposals raised by think tanks and professional bodies include overhauls of income and inheritance tax, 'pension tax relief simplification',…

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227 – The record S&P 500 bull run.

The US stock market set a new record for the longest-ever bull market in August. Wednesday 22 August 2018 saw the S&P 500 drop – by less than 0.1% – after 3,453 days, making it the longest-ever bull run (a period of rising share prices) for the index, which is used by professional investors’ as…

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225 – Slowing down our old age.

A paper published in August by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) casts new light on life expectancies in the UK. Life expectancy has been increasing in the UK for a long time, as the graph shows. In 1980, the average life expectancy at birth was 70.6 years for a man and 76.6 years for…

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A Gift with Tax strings!

If you are considering making gifts, make sure all your inheritance tax (IHT) liabilities are covered. Today’s treatment of lifetime gifts is extremely generous, which is why interest has increased ahead of the Autumn Budget. If you make an outright lifetime gift to an individual: • There is no immediate IHT charge, regardless of its…

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PPM – Autumn 2018 Newsletter

Please see attached our Autumn 2018 Newsletter. Pryor Portfolio Management - Autumn The contents of this article is for information purposes only and represent the opinion of Pryor Portfolio Management Limited only. No action should be taken on the basis of this article alone. We always recommend you seek more detailed independent financial advice before…

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Do you have a spare £230,000?

Financing a child’s path to adulthood is a serious commitment for parents. Any new parent will tell you a child is expensive from the outset: there is so much to be bought to cater for a new member of the family. But this is just the first step of many building up to a child’s…

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A REFUND FOR POWER OF ATTORNEY

You may be due a refund if you have registered a power of attorney in recent years. It is not often the government offers a refund because of overcharging, but last month it emerged that the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) had been levying excessive fees for four years. The fees related to the…

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A review due on how savings are taxed.

The way savings are taxed is being reviewed by the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS). The OTS is looking at the way in which savings and investment income is taxed, which can be very complicated. According to its paper, published in May 2018, “the interactions between the [tax] rates and allowances is sufficiently complex at…

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Pension transfer advice in demand

Transfers out of private sector final salaries boomed in 2017. There was a dramatic increase in the value of number of transfers out of defined benefit (usually final salary) pension schemes in 2017. A recent Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) revealed that the £20,800 million was transferred last year,…

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Interest rates will rise………but when?

The Bank of England did not raise interest rates in May, despite earlier suggestions that it would. About four years ago a member of the Treasury Select Committee compared Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, to “an unreliable boyfriend”. The remark was prompted by Mr Carney’s record of talking about future interest…

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