April 2011 - Page 3 of 3 - Financial Planning in Wimbledon

Market Report

The April 2011 figures are now available in the Market Report. Biggest monthly gains were in the Baltic Dry Index, Mumbai Sensex 30 and the Korean Composite index.

We are a boutique firm of financial planners. We create financial plans designed to achieve a desired lifestyle. We will craft and implement your plan that will provide you with the greatest chance of accomplishing your unique goals based upon the values that you hold. Financial products are little more than the tools to achieve your required results
Call us today or visit our website for more information and to arrange a meeting

Market ReportDominic2023-12-01T12:51:34+00:00

Easter Break

Now that the majority of schools are on their Easter break, please note that the office will be closed on Good Friday (22nd April 2011) and Bank Holiday Monday (25th April).

May I take this opportunity to wish you a peaceful Easter.

We are a boutique firm of financial planners. We create financial plans designed to achieve a desired lifestyle. We will craft and implement your plan that will provide you with the greatest chance of accomplishing your unique goals based upon the values that you hold. Financial products are little more than the tools to achieve your required results
Call us today or visit our website for more information and to arrange a meeting

Easter BreakDominic2023-12-01T12:51:35+00:00

Base Rate Held

The Bank of England decided to hold rates at 0.5% as expected. However, the city is generally of the view that a rise is likely in the summer. Given the warm weather here in London today, there was the slight chance that summer had come early, but fortunately borrowers have been given respite for a further month. It is likely that a rise will occur in June or July, but inflation figures whilst being somewhat alarming will improve naturally simply by mathematical inevitability. There is no real need for rates to rise at this point and whatever may be said in public, the truth is that a little inflation reduces debt and improves UK plc.

We are a boutique firm of financial planners. We create financial plans designed to achieve a desired lifestyle. We will craft and implement your plan that will provide you with the greatest chance of accomplishing your unique goals based upon the values that you hold. Financial products are little more than the tools to achieve your required results
Call us today or visit our website for more information and to arrange a meeting

Base Rate HeldDominic2023-12-01T12:51:35+00:00

Business News Update

Those men in bowler hats at Bradford & Bingley, now such a national treasure that we all own them, have provided some good news in that for the first time in 2 years of trading they have managed to turn in a profit. A very pleasing pre-tax profit of £1.8bn, as opposed to a loss of £196m in 2009. The UK bank, with the split personality, which they themselves name as “good bank / bad bank” – well Northern Rock’s “bad bank” also reported a profit of £400.5m in 2010 compared with a loss of £257.5m the year before. It is unclear what this really means – are they better at running a business or simply not lending badly? Compare this to the “new kid on the block” and the world’s biggest bank by market value, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, announced better-than-expected profits for 2010, which increased 28% to £15bn on the back of increases in bank lending. So we are all hoping that their lending policy is an awful lot better than those of British, American, Spanish, Irish and Portuguese banks (and a few others besides).

If the impending Royal Wedding has you needing to purchase some bubbly for your street party, you probably will not be popping over to Oddbins. They have finally gone into administration after talks failed to persuade the Inland Revenue (HMRC) to accept lower payments of owed taxes.

Turning to telecoms, as someone that is considering an Ipad 2 I seem unable to find anyone willing to stick their neck out on which network I should go with. Perhaps Vodafone are looking good – they have agreed to buy Essar Group’s 33% stake of their joint Indian venture for £3.1bn. In addition, they decided to sell its 44% stake in the French mobile phone operator SFR to Vivendi for £7bn; which will give France’s biggest mobile phone business full control of SFR. So I guess Vodaphone have more of an interest in India than our nearest neighbours in France.

If you have followed the news recently, there has been something of a storm over fishing rights and fish prices, this has absolutely nothing to do with chips or chip makers Texas Instruments, who announced they will be buying National Semiconductor lock stock and barrel for a sizzling £4bn; the deal makes TI the world’s third largest chipmaker and rather larger than Harry Ramsden (sorry I couldn’t help myself).

We are a boutique firm of financial planners. We create financial plans designed to achieve a desired lifestyle. We will craft and implement your plan that will provide you with the greatest chance of accomplishing your unique goals based upon the values that you hold. Financial products are little more than the tools to achieve your required results
Call us today or visit our website for more information and to arrange a meeting

Business News UpdateDominic2023-12-01T12:51:36+00:00

State Pension Announcement

After much speculation in the media over the weekend and my attempts to find a copy of the “Green Paper” it wasn’t until yesterday evening, at 6.15pm that the Coalition announced their plans and a Green Paper regarding the proposed changes to the State Pension. Speaking to a sparsely populated House of Commons (spot the MP) Prof. Steve Webb spoke about the key issues and plans that are being announced. The video is shown below (or see the link). You need to move the slider to about half way along – to the right time of 18:15:45

Transforming the State Pension is no easy task, simplifcation is a term that has regrettably been largely misused in the pension world and whilst the changes have noble aims there is an awful lot of number crunching to do before we can categorically say that everyone is better off and the State pension is simple to understand. Mr Webb said “With today’s Green Paper we are setting out how we plan to transform the pensions system and create a simple, decent state pension that is easy to understand and efficient to administer. We need to ensure that saving for the future pays.”

We are a boutique firm of financial planners. We create financial plans designed to achieve a desired lifestyle. We will craft and implement your plan that will provide you with the greatest chance of accomplishing your unique goals based upon the values that you hold. Financial products are little more than the tools to achieve your required results
Call us today or visit our website for more information and to arrange a meeting

State Pension AnnouncementDominic2023-12-01T12:51:37+00:00

Higher Taxes Start At Midnight

Today is the last day of the 2010/11 tax year, adjustments to employee taxes need to be made and paid by 31st January 2012 and of course the self-employed have until the same date to submit and pay their returns. Today also sees the final execution of the A-Day Pension Rules from 2006.

Regrettably, remembering that “we’re all in it together”..the new tax year which begins tomorrow is more complicated and for the majority of people, will mean that more tax is paid across to HMRC.

The most significant issue is that pension contributions are reducing from a possible £255,000 to £50,000 as a maximum for 2011/12. You also need to be warned that the way that this works in practice is not straight-forward. Contributions are based upon input periods, not necessarily payments made in the actual tax year. There is also now the option of using Carry Forward Allowance of unused relief from the previous 3 tax years. In addition the lifetime allowance is in its final year of £1.8m – this time next year it will be dropping to £1.5m unless Treasury plans are reversed.

The basic personal allowance rises by £1,000 to £7,475 before any tax is paid, which is good news for nil and basic rate taxpayers. Everyone else will actually start paying a 40% tax rate earlier as the banded earnings has reduced from £37,400 to £35,000. In other words in 2010/11 you had to earn £43,875 before paying tax at 40%, for 2011/12 this has reduced to £42,475. For those earning over £100,000 the personal allowance is removed entirely from £114,950 (in 2010/11 this was the case at £113,490). The £150,000 income earners retain a 50% tax rate on income above £150,000. National Insurance contributions will also rise.

So as we look forward to the new tax year, there are lots of changes. My role is to help clients use their allowances legitimately and perhaps more than ever before, financial planning advice is vital for anyone with an income over £42,475 and of particular importance to anyone with a six figure income.

The new ISA allowance is raise to an investment of £10,680 and the tax free benefits of ISAs are becoming ever more valuable with each passing tax year. So if you can, fill your boots with ISA and pension allowances where appropriate.

Don’t forget that Self-Assessment means that YOU are responsible for correctly reporting and paying your taxes to HMRC. So, if you don’t already, make sure you keep a tax year file…. yes include all those silly dividend slips from shares that your granny gave you. The old Hector character from HMRC used to regularly remind us to keep documentation, now that they use former BBC newsreaders, the sentiment seems to have been dropped from the script, but not from the practice.

We are a boutique firm of financial planners. We create financial plans designed to achieve a desired lifestyle. We will craft and implement your plan that will provide you with the greatest chance of accomplishing your unique goals based upon the values that you hold. Financial products are little more than the tools to achieve your required results
Call us today or visit our website for more information and to arrange a meeting

Higher Taxes Start At MidnightDominic2023-12-01T12:51:37+00:00

Compulsory Pensions On The Way

There are reports today within my trade press that the Government are close to scrapping the idea of short-term pension refunds. At the moment if you join an employers pension scheme and leave them within 2 years you are able to get a refund of your contributions, less any tax relief.

The administrative nightmare that this poses for NEST, when it eventually gets launched, is fairly obvious and probably the main factor for bringing in this new ruling (as yet unconfirmed). NEST will eventually see everyone making compulsory pension payments of 5% of salary with another 3% from employers (8% in all). The main problem for the state is that not enough people save enough for their retirement, most options have been considered, so now it will be compulsory to save (well in a couple of years).

This will be a major revolution for employers who must comply with the legislation and have to report their payments to HMRC. At the moment, I have to say that as a pension NEST is not that attractive, its not terribly flexible and you cannot move money in or out easily – until you retire. However, it is better than a poke in the eye, but at a maximum of £300 a month, is not going to make anyone have a retirement of luxury.

More on NEST to follow – also you can search this blog for previous items relating to it.

We are a boutique firm of financial planners. We create financial plans designed to achieve a desired lifestyle. We will craft and implement your plan that will provide you with the greatest chance of accomplishing your unique goals based upon the values that you hold. Financial products are little more than the tools to achieve your required results
Call us today or visit our website for more information and to arrange a meeting

Compulsory Pensions On The WayDominic2023-12-01T12:51:38+00:00

Client Services – Improving Our Service To You

I am delighted to announce that testing of our online services has been completed and we shall be launching a new online functionality for clients. This will make many tasks less tedious, including providing us with information about your income, spending and savings. The new site is secure and represents a shift in how we can further increase our usefulness to clients, saving you time and money.

I will be writing shortly to all clients to ask if you would like to take advantage of this service, which is free of charge to clients. You will require a unique password and username for your protection.

This is the result of significant work from myself, JCS and IFA Systems who have come together for mutual benefit to serve all of our respective clients better.

We are a boutique firm of financial planners. We create financial plans designed to achieve a desired lifestyle. We will craft and implement your plan that will provide you with the greatest chance of accomplishing your unique goals based upon the values that you hold. Financial products are little more than the tools to achieve your required results
Call us today or visit our website for more information and to arrange a meeting

Client Services – Improving Our Service To YouDominic2023-12-01T12:51:38+00:00