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…

UK shares produced a double digit increase in dividends over 2019. 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%…

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 state…

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 2010's? 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 2010's started with Gordon Brown as prime minister and, four elections and two referendums later, closed with Boris…

The National Living Wage (NLW) rises by over 6% in April. The 6.2% increase to £8.72 an hour equates to £15,870 a year based on a 35-hour week. The substantial rise is not down to inflation - which ended 2019 at only 1.3% - but due to a policy of George Osborne’s. When he made…

The clock is ticking on using up your pension annual allowance The allowance effectively sets the maximum pension contributions from all sources (including your employer) on which you may be able to claim income tax relief. In recent times it has been the subject of much controversy because of the way the allowance is tapered…

Last week’s Budget from the new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, included £7 billion of expenditure targeting the impact of Covid-19 on employees, the self-employed and businesses. Six days later a further raft of measures was announced, amounting to an additional £20 billion of support expenditure plus £330 billion of loan guarantees. The Chancellor’s 17 March statement…

The latest statistics from HMRC show the inflows to venture capital trusts (VCTs) have more than doubled since 2009/10. At the end of last year, HMRC published details of how much money was raised by VCTs in 2018/19. At £716m, the figure was the highest since 2005/06, when a temporarily higher rate of tax relief…

New calculations from the Office for National Statistics have lowered life expectancies. Every two years, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) recalculates its national population projections (NPP). As part of the exercise, the ONS reviews and updates its assumptions about future mortality, which in turn will have an impact on population size. The latest figures,…

In early January Chancellor announced a new Budget date: 11 March 2020. This could be a significant Budget. Traditionally, the first Budget of a new Parliament is when the Chancellor delivers the medicine of tax increases and/or unpopular reforms. To borrow from Macbeth: ‘If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were…

How will the new government affect your financial planning? December’s general election delivered a Conservative government with the sort of majority which consigns the knife-edge parliamentary battles of recent years to the past. So what will the new government do, apart from “get Brexit done”? A look at the Conservative manifesto, easily the shortest of…

The Lifetime ISA is now on its own as the ISA option for first time buyers. At the start of December, the Help-to-Buy ISA was withdrawn for new investments. Its disappearance means that the Lifetime ISA (LISA) is now the only ISA plan that offers incentives for those savings towards their first home. However, anyone…

The world’s share markets enjoyed strong rises in 2019. Index 2019 Change FTSE 100 +12.1% FTSE All-Share +14.2% Dow Jones Industrial +22.3% Standard & Poor’s 500 +28.88% Nikkei 225 +18.2% Euro Stoxx 50 (€) +24.8% Shanghai Composite +22.3% MSCI Emerging Markets (£) +11.0% 2019 was a very different year for investors from 2018. Whereas 2018…

The Financial Conduct Authority has announced a temporary ban on the promotion of most ‘mini-bonds’. Have you ever been tempted by those advertisements offering 8%+ yields on property-backed bonds? If you have, then you’ve probably been looking at a promotion for ‘mini-bonds’. These investments are not always what they seem and have already resulted in…

In early November, HMRC undertook a distinctly non-festive bulk mailing. “We receive information about investment funds and this information shows that you may have invested in Offshore Investment Funds.” Those slightly discomforting words are contained in a letter which HMRC sent out in early November. It was sent to a subset of taxpayers whose tax…

Recently released economic data suggest a relatively large increase in the main state pensions for the next tax year,but it’s still inadequate for a happy retirement. The new levels of state pension for the coming financial year (2020/21) are usually revealed in or alongside the Autumn Budget statement. But as 2019 has been a strange…

Inflation has fallen to its lowest level in almost three years, but you should still take it into account. The October measure of annual inflation was lower than most experts had expected.At 1.5% on the CPI yardstick, it was the lowest since November 2016 and 0.5% below what is still the Bank of England’s central…

The Autumn Budget may have been deferred, but the tax year clock is still ticking. The deferral of the Autumn Budget, originally due on 6 November 2019, created several problems. It meant that the political parties went into the election with just a government sanctioned economic forecast produced back in March, alongside Mr Hammond’s Spring…