2016 has certainly been a year of surprises with this morning just adding to the long list which includes Brexit, new prime ministers, Leicester City winning the Premiership...... Equity markets are selling off across the world as each one opens and bonds are rallying along with gold, in a nutshell its risk off; big style.…
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The Bank of England halved its base rate in August. By the end of the year, it could be lower still. At its first formal meeting after the Brexit vote, in early July the Bank of England's interest rate setters (the Monetary Policy Committee) surprised some economists by not cutting rates. The (non-) move resurrected…
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…
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Times 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 moreMore employers are failing to meet their obligations. The latest report on ‘compliance and enforcement’ from the Pensions Regulator shows that the recent batches of employers due to auto enrol have not been as prompt as their predecessors in meeting their responsibilities. In the third quarter of 2015, the regulator issued 469 ‘compliance notices’ requiring…
Read moreThe United States Federal reserve has moved closer to an interest rate rise next month. In September the USA’s central bank, the Federal Reserve (the ‘Fed’) surprised a fair few investment ‘experts’ by deciding not to increase short term interest rates. The Fed’s Chair, Janet Yellen, had earlier been dropping hints that September could see…
Read moreThis month’s Autumn Statement will not reveal and major pension tax reforms. Parliamentary questions are sometimes no such thing. Instead, they are mechanisms by which the government can reveal a decision on which it would prefer not to make a formal announcement. A good example (see below) occurred in late October in an exchange between…
Read moreHM Revenue & Customs' (HMRC's) accelerated payments programme has now collected £1bn from users of tax avoidance schemes. Last year HMRC gained the power to demand upfront tax payment from users of tax avoidance schemes subject to the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes (DOTAS) rules or the General Anti-Abuse Rule, or where a similar scheme…
Read more2 p.m. New York time on Thursday 17 September had been much anticipated by investment professionals around the world. It was the hour when the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee would release its meeting statement, revealing its latest interest rate decision. Ahead of the announcement there had been much speculation that an interest rate 'lift-off'…
Read moreA Miserable Summer It was not just the poor weather that made it a bad summer for investors! Index Third Quarter Change FTSE 100 - 7.04% FTSE All-Share - 6.57% Dow Jones Industrial -7.58% Standard & Poor's 500 -6.94% Nikkei 225 -14.07% Euro Stoxx 50 (€) -9.45% Hang Seng -20.59% MSCI Emerging Markets (£) -15.42%…
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Buy To Let - A Future Tax Trap A close reading of the summer Finance Bill has highlighted a further tax consequence of the government's moves to limit tax relief for interest on buy-to-let mortgages. The July Budget included an attack on individual investors in buy-to-let residential property. As well as abolishing the 10% wear-and-tear…
Read moreThe Chancellor has announced the date of the Autumn Statement. In late July, the Chancellor announced that the results of the Spending Review would be announced on 25 November. At the time he made no reference to the Autumn Statement, probably because the focus was still on his July Budget. However, in the beginning of…
Read moreNew EU rules about succession came into force on 17 August. If you own a holiday home on the continent, new EU regulations on cross-border succession could be important to you, even though the UK has opted out of the legislation. The new regulations will allow you to choose for your overseas property to be…
Read moreThe summer holiday months was anything but relaxing for investors in UK shares. As well as being the title of an Edna O'Brien novel, "August is a wicked month" probably sums up how many investors felt about the month. It was all going rather unexcitingly around the middle of the month, when the combination of…
Read moreTaking pension protection - yes or no? You can now opt for Individual Protection 2014 to protect your pension benefits. But should you? The lifetime allowance (LTA) effectively sets the maximum tax-efficient value of all your pension benefits. In its first iteration, in April 2006, the standard LTA was set at £1.5m. It then gradually…
Read moreHMRC cracks down further on tax avoidance schemes HMRC have published a list of tax avoidance schemes for which it wants up-front tax payments. Two days before the Finance Bill became the Finance Act, the obviously eager HMRC issued a list of nearly 1,200 tax avoidance schemes. Frustratingly the list consisted only of the scheme…
Read moreThe Investment Management Association has revealed the most popular fund sectors of 2013. At the end of January the Investment Management Association (IMA) published its summary of fund sales for 2013. This covers nearly 2,500 UK domiciled funds, with a total value at the end of 2013 of £770bn. 2013 was a much better…
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