News

With Christmas and the New Year over, it is time to turn your thoughts to planning for the tax year end. While many parts of the tax landscape have been frozen, such as the personal allowance and most income tax … Continue reading →

The Prime Minister has met his pledge of halving inflation, but we’re not out of the woods yet. Source: ONS, Ofgem. In the first week of 2023, the then still new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, set out “five immediate priorities” … Continue reading →

A survey of 6,000 people, aged 18 to 80, revealed starkly different views on retirement across the generations. According to the Office for National Statistics, the median age of the UK population in mid- 2021 was 40.7 years, up from … Continue reading →

Forget Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen et al. There is another more significant septet in the United States these days. The original version of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ was released in 1960 and remains to this day an iconic Western film. However, … Continue reading →

It’s that time of year again when financial gifts may be given… and HMRC is watching. Tax is never far away from anything you do and making gifts to children at Christmas is no exception. There are a few key … Continue reading →

Research has confirmed what your pocket already knows: UK taxes are at historically high levels. Measuring how taxes have changed over time involves much more than simply looking at tax rates. Politicians are well aware of this, but they also … Continue reading →

New legislation has paved the way for important changes to automatic enrolment in workplace pensions. At the start of October, automatic enrolment in workplace pension schemes quietly celebrated its eleventh anniversary. The latest data (April 2021) from the Office for … Continue reading →

The rise in mortgage rates since early 2022 has taken its toll on house prices. Source: Nationwide, ONS. In 2023, an annual fall in house prices has become an almost standard news item around the turn of the month, when … Continue reading →

The administration of lasting powers of attorney (LPA) is on its way to becoming fully online. In an ideal world, you should have an LPA (or its Scottish or Northern Ireland equivalent) sitting beside your will. The absence of either … Continue reading →

National Savings & Investments has launched two top of the savings league table one-year bonds, but the headline rates may not be your net return. The primary role of National Savings & Investments (NS&I) is “cost-effective financing for the government.” … Continue reading →

The Chancellor has announced that he will issue an Autumn Statement on 22 November. Perhaps it was just coincidence, but a year to the day after Liz Truss was elected Prime Minister, the current Chancellor (and her second) announced that … Continue reading →

A new think tank report highlights the need to increase pension contributions. Over time, good ideas start to age. Take, for example, automatic enrolment into workplace pensions, which is now eleven years old. In some respects, it has been highly … Continue reading →

“Get a will and keep it up to date” is advice that often appears in the personal finance pages and elsewhere. A recent lapse in concentration from the Ministry of Justice illustrates how important that advice can be. The lapse … Continue reading →