News

Prioritise peace in your life: extend the Marie Kondo tidiness craze from your home to your finances.

Have you ever looked at a room in your home and wondered how you accumulated so much stuff? You might well remember when you acquired each item, but the questions of why and whether you still need it can be more awkward to answer. 

Recent dividend announcements have been an unwelcome reminder for some investors that peaks also have downsides.

Dividends matter to investors in UK shares. The UK stock market has historically been one of the higher yielding of the world’s major share markets. For example, on 24 May the average dividend yield in the UK, based on the FTSE All-Share Index, was 4.26% against just 1.94% across the Atlantic, as measured by the  S&P 500 Index.

A 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 government as too costly.

Recent 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 HMRC’s most recent statistics, to the end of March 2019, show that 1,113,000 people have withdrawn over £25,600m from their pensions, across 6,136,000 payments. The amounts withdrawn and the number of payments have both increased each tax year – in 2018/19 there were over 2,400,000 payments totalling £8,180m.

A 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 these donors, they were asked eight questions, which are shown below. Now it is your turn to try:

Professional investor interest has been focusing on US government bond yields, with potential lessons for long term investment.

Source: US Treasury 

On 22 March the US stock market caught a sudden – and brief – chill.  One of the main reasons was the red line in the graph shown above.

Measures 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 report some NHS consultants are being landed with tax bills of up to £87,000, prompting them to reduce working hours or even take early retirement.

As people are living longer, a parallel older-age profile is emerging in the labour force.

Source: National Statistics 16/4/2019

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.

6th April marks the 20^th 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 much more.

A 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 was not inaccurate, like many such headlines it was open to misinterpretation.