A government-commissioned report has proposed significant changes to the funding of university students in England. Students resident in England (different rules apply in other parts of the UK) pay a maximum university tuition fee of £9,250 per year, financed by a student loan. Further loans to cover maintenance plus interest at RPI+3% mean that at…
Read moreA paper presented to the Labour Party has suggested the abolition of inheritance tax (IHT). Labour Party proposals to kill off inheritance tax (IHT) and replace it with a gifts tax were reported across several newspapers last month. The coverage was somewhat creative, as the idea was plucked from a paper prepared for the Labour…
Read moreThe recent problems with the suspension of dealings in a heavily promoted UK equity income fund have exposed the blurred line between advice and guidance. According to the Investment Association (IA), there are around 3,500 funds on sale in the UK. The IA sorts these into over 30 individual investment sectors, although about 10% are…
Read moreThe BBC’s decision to scrap universal free TV licences for the over-75's is part of the larger debate about our growing ageing population. Free TV licences for the over-75's were introduced by Gordon Brown in his 2000 Budget. It was a classic rabbit-out-the-hat Budget measure, designed to please at a relatively modest initial cost. Wind…
Read moreThe world’s share markets had a buoyant first six months. Index 2019 H1 Change FTSE 100 +10.4% FTSE All-Share +10.4% Dow Jones Industrial +14.0% Standard & Poor’s 500 +17.3% Nikkei 225 +6.3% Euro Stoxx 50 (€) +15.7% Shanghai Composite +19.4% MSCI Emerging Markets (£) +9.3% The final few months of 2018 were a dark time…
Read moreA survey by HMRC published in May concluded that the public have a relatively poor knowledge of inheritance tax (IHT) rules and lack of confidence in what they do know. HMRC recently commissioned a survey of 947 people who had made gifts in the last two years. To assess knowledge of the IHT system among…
Read moreA new set of proposals for funding long-term care has emerged from a significant source. The funding of long-term care is an issue that beats even Brexit in terms of protracted political procrastination. A Royal Commission on the subject was established in 1997 and reported in 1999. Its proposals were rejected by the then Labour…
Read moreA new set of proposals for funding long-term care has emerged from a significant source. The funding of long-term care is an issue that beats even Brexit in terms of protracted political procrastination. A Royal Commission on the subject was established in 1997 and reported in 1999. Its proposals were rejected by the then Labour…
Read moreIf those three letters mean nothing to you now, they may do soon. Universal Basic Income (UBI) has become a topic attracting attention among some think-tanks and political parties, both in the UK and overseas.The idea behind UBI is simple and has an obvious electoral appeal. In its most basic form, UBI would give every…
Read moreRecent HMRC statistics highlight the over-taxation of some pension benefits. More than one million people have received flexible pension payments thanks to therules introduced just over four years ago. HMRC’s most recent statistics, to the end of March 2019, show that 1,113,000 people have withdrawn over £25,600m from their pensions, across 6,136,000 payments.The amounts withdrawn…
Read moreMeasures designed to limit the cost of pensions tax relief to the Treasury are having some unwelcome consequences, as some senior doctors have found their incomes disappearing. Some members of the medical profession have found changes to legislation mean their earnings are getting swallowed up by the tax system. According to a recent Financial Times…
Read moreFigures recently released for last tax year show the highest level of VCT investment since 2005/06. The Association of Investment Companies was quick off the mark after 5 April in announcing a near record level of fund raising for venture capital trusts (VCTs) in 2018/19. At £731m, 2018/19 VCT investment just beat the 2017/18 figure…
Read moreAs people are living longer, a parallel older-age profile is emerging in the labour force. Labour market statistics for the period December 2018 to February 2019 revealed some impressive results. In the UK, employment of those aged 16-64 was running at 76.1%, the joint highest level ever and up 0.7% on a year ago. Drill…
Read moreThe importance of China’s stock market is set to quadruple in 2019. China has been at the forefront of the headlines recently, whether about the protracted trade dispute with the US, the alleged dangers of using Huawei’s 5G equipment or the first landing of a spacecraft on the far side of the moon. The ‘Middle…
Read moreA recent report shows that life expectancy is still improving, but not as quickly as was once expected. “British life expectancy falls by SIX MONTHS for men and women” That was one recent headline in response to the latest report of the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. While it…
Read more6 April marks the 20th birthday of the Individual Savings Account (ISA). When the ISA was introduced in 1999, many thought it to be little more than a rebranding of the two schemes it replaced: the Personal Equity Plan (PEP) and Tax Exempt Savings Account (TESSA). The following 20 years have proved ISAs to be…
Read moreThe Chancellor's Spring Statement was almost obscured by other events in mid-March. Ever since he announced a move to an Autumn Budget in 2016, Mr Hammond has made it clear that he wanted to avoid the Spring Statement counterpart becoming a mini-Budget. His vision was that in March he would be presenting a brief response…
Read moreYour April pay may look much the same as March’s, but it is worth giving your pay slip a close look. If you are an employee, your April pay slip is always worth checking, even if you pay little attention to the other eleven you receive over a year. The items to check include: Salary.…
Read moreBuy-to-let investors will be hit by another notch up of the tax ratchet. When George Osborne announced in his summer 2015 Budget a variety of tax changes aimed at discouraging buy-to-let (BTL) investment, they came as a surprise. To ease their impact, the then Chancellor phased in the most significant reform, a revised treatment of…
Read moreDividend payments from UK companies in 2018 once again outpaced annual inflation. Your income could have increased by more than double the rate of CPI inflation in 2018. Link Asset Services, a leading share registrar, reported a 5.1% growth in total dividend payments of UK companies last year. Their January dividend monitor showed that in…
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