The 'Panama Papers' have created a media frenzy about offshore investment. Not everything you read was necessarily accurate. Offshore investment made front page headlines last month, with the leak of 11.5 million documents from a law firm in Panama. The fact that there was link to the Prime Minister gave the story legs, but unfortunately…
Read moreThe announcement of the Lifetime ISA suggests that the Chancellor has not given up on his ideas for reforming the taxation of pensions. Shortly before the Budget there was an unofficial announcement that the much leaked (but equally unofficial) plans for pension tax reform would not be making an appearance. Most commentators thought the Chancellor…
Read moreThe Chancellor made a surprise decision to cut capital gains tax (CGT) in his Budget - but not for everyone. Cast your mind back to June 2010, when George Osborne presented his first "Emergency Budget" as Chancellor. One of his tax raising actions was to introduce a two tier system of CGT. Instead of being…
Read moreThe burden of income tax was reduced slightly in the Budget, but anomalies remain. The personal allowance will rise from £11,000 to £11,500 in 2016/17 and the higher rate threshold - the starting point for 40% tax - will rise by £2,000 to £45,000. While the Treasury described the increase in the higher rate threshold…
Read moreThe first quarter of the year is over. For all the excitement over the last three months, from end to end, not much happened. Do you remember back to the first half of February, when markets were full of doom and gloom and the FTSE was threatening to drop below 5,500 and the Dow Jones…
Read moreThe date of 23 June has been set for the EU referendum. It could be a volatile run into summer. February was the month that Brexit (UK exit from the EU) started to hit the headlines in a big way. The Prime Minister finished his negotiations after the traditional late night arguments and confirmed that…
Read moreThe Pensions Regulator is finding a growing number of automatic enrolment failures. The Pensions Regulator (TPR) recently issued its latest "Compliance and enforcement" bulletin, looking at progress to the end of 2015. This showed that as the size of employers drawn into the scope of auto-enrolment has shrunk, so have the TPR's actions and fines…
Read moreThe latest inflation figure has crept up again, but interest rates haven't followed. Between December 2015 and January 2016, overall prices as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) fell by 0.8%. However, prices normally fall between Christmas and the New Year as the sales get under way and the festive travel price hikes are…
Read moreYour latest PAYE code may look a little strange. It's the time of year when HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) sends out PAYE codes for the new tax year. Usually that means adjustments for: An increase in the personal allowance, which in 2016/17 will rise by £400 to £11,000; Changes in any benefit values, notably…
Read moreAs we near the end of the tax year, now is the time to consider not only year end planning, but also planning for the new tax year. It is one of the features of the political cycle that the more difficult and less palatable legislation tends to come at the start of a parliamentary…
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This was the third budget within the space of 12 months. It threatened to be the most difficult of the trio because of constraints imposed by June's EU referendum and disappointing economic numbers. Nevertheless the Chancellor managed to produce several surprises, including net tax cuts in 2017/18 and 2018/19 before reaching his often repeated goal…
Read moreThis year's venture capital trusts (VCT) offerings are the first under a changed set of investment rules. VCTs offer several attractive tax benefits: •Income tax relief at 30% is available on new share subscriptions for investments up to £200,000 per tax year; •Dividends are free of income tax; and •Any gains are free from capital…
Read moreThe Governor of the Bank of England has made another interest rate pronouncement. Almost since he started the job in July 2013, Mark Carney has used his position of Governor of the Bank of England to talk about when UK interest rates will begin to increase. So far he has largely managed to prove that…
Read morePryor Portfolio Management run a range of risk rated actively managed investment funds. We have successfully steered our funds during the recent wave of volatility so we thought it may be prudent to give our strategic opinion of the next few months leading to the vote on the 23rd June. Brexit The UK EU referendum…
Read moreThere have been more press reports that the Chancellor will reform tax relief for pension contributions in his March Budget. In last July's Budget the Chancellor launched a consultation on 'tax incentivised saving'. It was a curious sort of consultation, in as much as it dwelt largely on the tax cost of the existing pension…
Read moreTimes of market stress create inevitable client concerns. This is of course the nature of risk and equity investing but recent months have certainly been more turbulent than most. As we have been alluding to in previous communications oil and China continue to be the main causes of market stress, we thought it might be…
Read morePetrol and diesel fell to under a £1 a litre in January as the supermarkets battled for customers. The drop was due to the precipitous decline in the price of oil, which started in mid-2014, when oil was over $100 a barrel, and took another step down in late 2015, to $30 territory. It might…
Read moreThe Autumn Statement marked another future tax increase for buy-to-let. "Frankly, people buying a home to let should not be squeezing out families who can't afford a home to buy." Those words from Chancellor George Osborne, heralded the announcement in the Autumn Statement of an increase in Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) for the purchase…
Read moreThe government has set out further details about the secondary annuity market. In last March's Budget the Chancellor launched a consultation considering how existing pension annuity holders would be able to sell their annuity in return for a taxable lump sum. The logic behind the idea was to give existing pensioners the same flexibility as…
Read moreLast month's Autumn Statement marked another future tax increase for buy-to-let. "Frankly, people buying a home to let should not be squeezing out families who can't afford a home to buy." Those words from Chancellor George Osborne, heralded the announcement in the Autumn Statement of an increase in Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) for the…
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