What is an ISA?
‘ISA’ stands for Individual Savings Account, a tax-efficient wrapper offered under Government legislation as a way of encouraging you to save. An ISA sits over your choice of a number of different investments to shelter them from further tax on any income or gains
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Created on: Fri 04 May 2012 11:29
Last modified: Fri 04 May 2012 11:48
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Investment Advice and tagged with
isa
Here's a brief resume of today's budget
INCOME TAX
- From April 2013, the 50p top rate of tax will be cut to 45p.
- Personal income tax allowance raised to £9,205 from April 2013, making 24 million people £220 a year better off.
- New general anti-tax avoidance rule to be
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Created on: Wed 21 March 2012 16:43
Last modified: Wed 21 March 2012 16:46
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General info
The HMRC have confirmed that tax payers will start to receive a personal statement each year, showing a breakdown of how their tax is spent.
Plans to provide personalised statements have been confirmed by the Treasury and George Osborne in his latest budget.
The aim of the statement will be to
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Created on: Wed 21 March 2012 14:07
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Investment Advice,
Tax Planning and tagged with
hmrc,
tax
The Chancellor George Osborne, announced yesterday on the BBC Andrew Marr show that he intends to crack down on the abuse of so-called Stamp duty Land Tax Schemes. The Chancellor was referring to the upcoming Budget this week.
These schemes are sometimes
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Created on: Mon 19 March 2012 09:57
Last modified: Wed 08 May 2013 12:01
As we are coming to the end of the tax year, many investors might ask themselves whether it is better to use your annual ISA allowance or Pension allowance. The simple answer is both if you have the capital available to do this.
However if you only have a limited amount of money, which route is
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Created on: Thu 15 March 2012 16:59
Last modified: Thu 15 March 2012 17:10
A number of open market option providers, along with campaigners are planning to launch an annuity comparison service.
The service is to be launched to raise the benefits of shopping around for the best annuity rates.
Many products such as Personal pensions and stakeholder plans give the
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Created on: Tue 13 March 2012 15:55
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Pensions Advice and tagged with
annuity
The latest edition of our Smart Money Magazine is now available to download
Topics covered in this months edition
- Navigating the Pensions Landscape
- End of Year Tax Planning
- Beat the ISA Deadline
- Making a Will
- Speading Investment Risk
To get a copy of the latest edition please
click here
Created on: Fri 09 March 2012 15:34
Last modified: Mon 12 March 2012 07:14
A report by the Ethical Investment Research Service (EIRIS) in October 2011 showed a dramatic increase in the number of investors using ethical or socially responsible investments.
Eiris is a not for profit organisation that provides research on ethical investments, banks and financing.
The
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Created on: Thu 08 March 2012 14:35
Last modified: Thu 08 March 2012 15:02
A cross party committee of MP’s have hit out at the number of badly regulated Pay Day and Debt loan companies in the UK.
An increasing number of people are now using these types of companies. The numbers of people now using short term, pay day loan providers have increased from 300,000 in 2006
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Created on: Wed 07 March 2012 15:30
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General info and tagged with
pay day laons
The High Court, will today here an appeal from Unions over pensions. The appeal relates to the use of the Consumer Prices Index when calculating pension indexation as opposed to the previous method of using the Retail Prices Index (RPI).
The unions have argued that the change will affect the
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Created on: Mon 20 February 2012 11:43
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Pensions Advice
Credit Rating Agency Moody’s have announced downgrades for a number of Euro zone nations. It has also issued a negative outlook for the UK. This could spell problems for the UK’s AAA credit rating.
It’s only Monday and it has been a busy week already. Greece yesterday approved further
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Created on: Tue 14 February 2012 16:03
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General info and tagged with
financial planning,
investment
The ability for the Chinese authorities to stimulate their economy were halted today, after higher than expected inflation figures. China has seen record increases in its economy over the last ten years, with some astounding increases in growth. But with growth comes the problem of inflation as the
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Created on: Thu 09 February 2012 10:29
Last modified: Fri 01 February 2013 12:48
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General info and tagged with
global,
china
The winners and losers
Last year according to citywire only 12% of US Equity funds beat the S and P 500 stock market index last year.
Many UK investors tend to hold a relatively small amount in US Equity funds. In the past many investors might have been disappointed by the returns achieved,
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Created on: Wed 25 January 2012 07:11
Last modified: Thu 09 February 2012 07:16
First week back and like many people I’ve been catching up with paperwork and numerous spam emails that had dropped into my email box between Christmas and New Year.
I read and article yesterday and whilst watching the news late last night, I wondered why there is so most emphasis put on the
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Created on: Fri 06 January 2012 16:31
Last modified: Thu 12 January 2012 12:41
How can I save on Income Tax?
There are a number of ways to reduce your possible income tax liability.

A simple example would be to make a personal contribution towards a pension arrangement.
Contributions benefit from tax relief therefore reducing the amount of UK income tax you might
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Created on: Sat 03 December 2011 15:08
Last modified: Thu 01 March 2012 08:24
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Tax Planning
Changes to Basic State Pension
Confirmation from the Dept of Works and Pensions has outlined changes to the basic state pension.
The coalition has been concerned with the complexities of means testing and the burden this puts on the state to adminster means tested benefits.
Apparently radical
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Created on: Sat 03 December 2011 09:30
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Pensions Advice
Public Sector Pensions Report
Labour MP John Hutton has recommended an increase in the contribution made by employees to public sector pension schemes.
He recently branded Public sector final salary schemes as “inherently unfair” as a large proportion of private sector workers are no longer
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Created on: Sat 03 December 2011 09:28
Last modified: Thu 09 February 2012 08:29
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Pensions Advice
Government change pension contributions
An announcement by the Treasury this morning has confirmed that the annual pensions allowance is to be reduced to £50,000.
The total lifetime allowance for pensions (the total value of your pension before tax is applied) is to be reduced from £1.8
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Created on: Sat 03 December 2011 09:27
Last modified: Thu 09 February 2012 08:31
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Pensions Advice
Pension Reform and Employers
The 2008 Pensions Act will introduce Auto Enrolment, a major pension reform starting in October 2012.
Employers (starting with the largest) will be required to offer a workplace pension scheme that satisfies the new legislation. Requirements will be phased in over four
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Created on: Sat 03 December 2011 09:25
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Pensions Advice
The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has recently published research about introducing a simpler more generous state pension.
The report maintains that a level state pension of £140 per week would be simpler to administer, remove millions of people from claiming benefits and would not
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Created on: Sat 03 December 2011 09:24
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Investment Advice