HMRC is starting the tax year with their annual reminder to submit your tax return. HMRC's reminder might seem early, but its statistics show that 750,000 people (6.5%) missed the deadline for 2016/17, potentially facing an immediate £100 penalty, even if they had no outstanding tax to pay. Anyone with a 2016/17 return still outstanding…
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With Brexit now less than a year away, how insular are your investments? Brexit - or more accurately the start of the transition/implementation period of the UK leaving the EU - begins on 29 March 2019. By the end of the following year, the UK's remaining links to the EU are due to be cut.…
Read moreIt is worth looking at what your pension pot could buy for your retirement. The importance of pension contributions has been bolstered by the rollout of auto-enrolment pension schemes. However, it is not as clear what your savings will give you when you come to retire. For example, Louise, a healthy, non-smoking 65-year-old, reaches retirement…
Read moreImportant changes for Venture Capital Schemes and enterprise investment have recently come into effect. New 'risk-to-capital' conditions apply to investments in venture capital trusts (VCTs), enterprise investment schemes (EISs) and seed enterprise investment schemes (SEISs). The changes took effect on 15 March 2018, when the Finance Act 2018 received Royal Assent. Broadly speaking, an EIS…
Read moreThe Chancellor's Spring Statement on 13 March was, as promised, a low-key event. Last autumn, Mr Hammond announced he would have only one 'fiscal event' each year - an autumn Budget. The Spring Statement would become a response to revised projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The Treasury has had to provide an…
Read moreThere are advantages to planning your ISA investments around the start of the tax year. With ISAs all the taxation benefits occur afterinvestment is made, yet the focus is often on year-end contributions. Various articles on ISAs filled the weekend press in March, and are set to re-emerge like a financial sign of spring in…
Read moreGood Morning. Please find attached a document you may find useful with all the headline tax changes for 2018/19. If you would like a copy of our more comprehensive tax guide for 2018/19 then drop us a line! Tax tables 18-19 The contents of this article is for information purposes only and represent the opinion…
Read moreYou 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…
Read moreThe start of the new tax year on 6 April marks several changes to tax and related matters that could make you richer... or poorer. The absence of a Spring Budget does not mean that the usual raft of changes at the start of the new tax year have disappeared. Most of the important changes…
Read moreThe rules for inheriting ISA's will change from 6 April. It was announced by George Osborne in 2014 that ISA's would become inheritable by surviving spouses and civil partners. At the time, nobody - not even the Treasury - was clear what the then chancellor meant. The plans for ISA 'inheritance', when they eventually emerged,…
Read moreMost people wait until they accumulate wealth or enter the winter of their life before considering doing their will’s but in reality you should regard the importance of writing a will as essential as soon as you become a parent. In the event where both parents were to pass at the same time or more…
Read morePPM would like to welcome Emma Green to the team as their Client Review Manager. 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…
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The long-running saga of the final spring Budget and subsequent Finance Bills is one step nearer the end. The Chancellor’s spring Budget was thrown into disarray by the snap election. It was billed as the last spring Budget, since from now on all Budgets will be autumn events. However, only about a fifth of the…
Read morePension flexibility two years on – the report card The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has examined the impact of pension flexibility and is worried about the lack of advice. Pension flexibility came into effect in April 2015. In theory, since then it has been possible from age 55 onwards to withdraw your entire money purchase…
Read moreThe government has announced plans for a further increase in state pension age. On the day before Parliament shut up shop for its summer holidays, David Gauke, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, announced that the government had decided state pension age (SPA) should be increased to 68 between April 2037 and April…
Read moreThe general election left the future of many spring Budget announcements up in the air, but that situation may soon change When Theresa May announced her snap election in April, it threw a major spanner in the previous month's Budget. There was no time to pass the 776 pages of Finance Bill before parliament shut…
Read moreNo, it's not a mistake, but it is not the FTSE 100, either. The most frequently quoted index of UK share prices is the FTSE 100 index, or the "Footsie" as it is frequently described. The FTSE 100 index was launched at the end of 1983, with the aim of giving a yardstick to the…
Read moreThe latest Quarterly Inflation Report (QIR) from the Bank of England has been published and shows that 'the Old Lady' has changed her mind a little. But the market projections for short-term interest rates don't make for helpful reading for those with cash deposits. The QIR was published in May, a few days before the…
Read moreThe general election campaign provided a reminder that the issue of funding social care remains unresolved. Who pays how much for long term care in England came to the fore last month. It is one of those subjects which successive governments have repeatedly kicked down the road. Nearly 20 years ago the then Labour government…
Read moreAutomatic enrolment has reached a new landmark, but the path from 2017 onwards could be challenging. When automatic enrolment (AE) into workplace pensions started in October 2012, there were some doubts about how successful it would be. A little over four years later, few would argue that AE has not been a success, at least…
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