TAX FREE AT 65 – IT’S ABOUT TIME…

TODAY’S BLOG

TAX FREE AT 65, IT’S ABOUT TIME…

I am going to have to put a lot of caveats with this item on tax free money. There are lots of ways to have tax free money, but I want to highlight a couple of issues, the first being the different tax treatment of different financial products and secondly how these might be used in conjunction with the current tax rules.

Joan is 65 and now finally retired – it’s about time!

Joan (10/02/1954) was 65 at the start of the tax year but she stopped working in February when she turned 65. She is single and back in the late 80’s a dead-ringer for Kim Bassinger. She has worked since leaving University in 1977 and much like her favourite band Fleetwood Mac, she has gone her own way. She did a bit of employed work whilst at Uni, but got her “first proper job” working as a junior assistant in an advertising company. Over the years she worked for various employers, most didn’t have pension schemes, anyway most wouldn’t let you join them until you were 30, so by the time she actually joined a scheme at 35 (in 1989), she didn’t really feel that she was too late to the party. She didn’t really like pensions, or rather the sharp suited, red-tie wearing blokes from Merchant Investors that sold them, they reminded her of some of the worst people in advertising. Then there was Robert Maxwell, no she didn’t like pensions at all. Mind you she was quite pleased that her current adviser found an old Contracted Out of SERPS pension, worth about £85,000 – so one of those fellas must have persuaded her to sign a form at some point. It helped top up her pension fund quite a lot to about £400,000.

At the age of 30 Joan bought her Wimbledon house in 1984 for £34,000 which was a lot back then. She recalls a great house warming party – lots of Wham! and Duran Duran. Looking back she wondered how she afforded it, (the house, not the party) given that interest rates were about 10% and kept going up. However property prices seemed to be rising (hers had doubled in value in 5 years) and she was forming a habit for nice things, which nearly got out of hand, but she spoke to her bank and remortgaged, increasing her loan in 1988 to almost £60,000. When the property crash happened shortly afterwards life got a little tricky, she had to economise. She enjoyed applying tips to improve her home from Tessa Shaw and the team on Home Front. She loved relaxing in the evening having done a bit of decorating whilst listening to Simply Red’s “Stars” curled up on the sofa. It heped her manage her feelings about her large mortgage which barely seemed to reduce in the first 10 years, but at least it was – and she hung in there. She finally paid off her mortgage 10 years ago at the age of 55. She still believes it was her best investment.

Joan quite liked PEPs and ISAs. She remembered getting a little lucky with a few Building Societies that demutualised and even put the proceeds into a Single Company PEP. She wasn’t sure why she liked them, perhaps it was because she was told she could get her money out if she needed to (she never did) or perhaps it was because it seemed that they were more glamorous, or was that because she seemed to remember a tune by Right Said Fred called “I’m Too Sexy For My Shirt” that was playing a lot at the time. It wasn’t, that was 1991, no perhaps it was all those boy bands like Westlife and Boyzone that she secretly liked she remembers them being around in 1999, that was Tony Blair and all the optimism and promise of equality of new Labour. She kept up her regular savings and built up her ISAs, which began 20 years ago in 1999.

Joan had learned a bit about investing, the important things like ignoring what everyone else said, she first learned this as her Yuppie thirtysomething friends got into a panic in the crash of October ’87 which she ignored. Then shortly after opening her new ISA learned never to invest in a technology themed fund when the dot-com bubble burst. She chalked it up to “experience”. Other than that, she took investment news in her stride, largely ignoring the mountains of paper that seemed to pile up each year. Over time she observed that stock markets tend to go up and down and up again. Admittedly Joan got a little lucky – 10 years ago at 55 when she had cleared off her mortgage, her career was going well and she had a decent disposable income. She saw an adviser who suggested she add more to her pension and ISA, as luck would have it the Government increased the amount she could contribute and she took advantage of 40% tax relief. It was just as well as her State Pension Age was being pushed even further into the future.

Not long afterwards, she started investing into VCTs, (Venture Capital Trusts) well, she had a few friends that had some good business ideas, she had watched The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den and thought a little bit of a flutter was probably ok. She saved into a VCT for few years ago but has since stopped adding money.

Joan has always paid her National Insurance and has a full State Pension which only started in the summer when she was 65, 4 months and 26 days old. Her State pension is £168 a week. She was a bit miffed that it wasn’t 65 (and when she started out at Uni, it would have been 60) but she had enjoyed the benefits of working until 65.

Joan’s Portfolio

£400,000 – Personal Pension Plan
£400,000 – Stocks and Shares ISA Portfolio
£80,000 – VCT (Venture Capital Trust)
£50,000 – Bank Deposit Account
£600,000 – Home

Not an unreasonable sum of money – in fact having paid off her mortgage and owning her home, Joan has savings and investments of £930,000. Her home is not an investment, its where she lives. Though her friends regularly tell her that it is an investment if she sells and moves away from Wimbledon. However what would be the point? her friends all live in the area, she loves going jogging on the Common with some of them. Her mum (91) is still alive and living nearby, though Joan is worried that she may need care at some point and the cost of care in Wimbledon is, well… there may not be much of an inheritance.

Tax Free Allowances

In the current tax year 2019/20. Joan has a personal allowance of £12,500 before she pays any income tax. Her State Pension will use up a lot of this. Income up to £50,000 is taxed at 20% (when the personal allowance is considered).

The VCT is a fairly “high-risk” type of investment, she isn’t paying any money into it any longer, but does enjoy income from it of 3% a year, this is tax free within a VCT. That’s £2,400 a year.

Her ISA is doing well, she has set up a monthly payment from it to her of £4,000 a quarter (£16,000 a year). As this is an ISA, the income that she takes (or capital) is tax free. By way of note £16,000 4% of £400,000.

The State Pension – Joan is caught by equalisation.

Joan originally expected her State Pension to start when she was 60, but following various rule changes and seeking advice in the early 2000’s she realised that it would be later than that. Joan’s State Pension actually began this summer on 6 July 2019. Over the full remainder of the tax year she will have 38 payments of £168 (£6,384) normally in a full tax year it would obviously be 52 weeks (£8,736) but she is one of many women that saw their State Pension Age increased. She’s a little miffed at having an extra 5 years to wait and wanted to know how she can minimise her tax payments.

Joan would like to know how much she could take from her pension without paying any tax. As her other investments are tax free, the only taxable income she has is money from her State pension (£6,384 in 2019/20) the personal allowance is £12,500. She puts £8,154 of her pension into a Flexible Access Drawdown pension. This enables her to take £2,038.50 as a tax free lump sum (25%) and £6,115 as taxable income. So rather like this:

State Pension £6,384 (taxable at 0%)
Drawdown Pension £6,115 (taxable at 0%)
Tax Free lump sum from pension £2,038 (tax free)
VCT income £2,400 (tax free)
ISA income £16,000 (tax free)
TOTAL income £32,927 and NO INCOME TAX

More and Less

The first point to make is that the above is not the maximum income that Joan could have. I simply want to identify some options. She could take more from her ISA, she is entitled to tax free interest on her money at the bank. She could take more from her pension (a larger tax free lump sum and no income from the pension if she was so minded). As an employed income £32,927 in 2019/20 would for most people result in about £7,000 paid in tax and national insurance.

Joan will need advice to adjust her portfolios and determine the most suitable way for her to draw income. Next year she will have a larger State pension, using more of her personal allowance as it will be a full year of income for her (and a likely increase in April).

Annuity Option

When she retired at the start of the year at 65, Joan had investigated using her pension to buy an annuity. She was going to simply take the 25% from her fund and put it in the bank and then use the £300,000 to buy an annuity. As a single person in very good health, she wanted an inflation-proofed income. The best annuity available would guarantee that she receives £9,851 a year rising by 3% a year. Job done. That’s an annuity rate of roughly 3.2%, but the income is taxable. In the first year she would have total income of £16,255 from the annuity and her State Pension, paying tax of £747. Her VCT and ISA income remain the same at £18,400 in all. So her total income would be £34,655 (more) but with tax of £747 (net £33,908) She has £300,000 less on her personal balance sheet and has £981 extra income in the year.

In the second year, she would expect £10,146 from the annuity and a State Pension of £8,736 a total of £18,882, which if the personal allowance remains at £12,500 would mean that £6,382 is taxed at 20% (£1,276.40 tax). Whilst there are good things about an annuity (it’s a guaranteed income) this is also a problem for tax planning as the income cannot be switched off and is taxable.

The purpose of this fictional case study is simply meant to highlight the issues involved, everyone’s circumstances will be different. I have not considered that Joan may live a very long time and whether taking 4% from her ISA is a good idea or indeed if she has a suitable globally diverse portfolio. I have done no inheritance tax planning and no contributions to anything that might get tax relief. Had Joan had other investments, she could also use her capital gains tax allowance. There are lots of options.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

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The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

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TAX FREE AT 65 – IT’S ABOUT TIME…Dominic2023-12-01T12:17:07+00:00

HOW TO FIND THAT LOST PENSION

TODAY’S BLOG

HOW TO FIND THAT LOST PENSION

I make no apology for pinching this really helpful piece from Henry Tapper and People’s Pension. I have a very high regard for Henry who constantly attempts to bring clarity and insight in plain language to anyone that comes into contact with the world of financial services. Henry set up Age Wage Ltd which hopes to revolutionise pension advice for smaller investors. His blog is hugely successful (if the number of visits is any indication). A former Bryanston pupil and Cambridge Graduate with a penchant for messing around in boats, here is his post from Wednesday. Over to Henry…

The DWP tell us that we’ll have lost 50m pension pots by 2050, unless we do better at tracking them down than we’re doing at the moment! There’s £20,000,000,000 of lost money in the pension system at the moment so let’s get finding! The dashboard ‘s going to help but – why wait for the dashboard!

Here are some handy tips from our friends at People’s Pension about how we can find our pensions today.

HOW ARE PENSIONS LOST?

People Pension’s research found that 1 in 5 people have lost track of a pension and 3 in 5 adults don’t know where all their pension savings details are.

So, why are people losing track of their pension pots?

Not sure who you’ve got pension savings with?

You may have changed jobs several times by the time you retire, so you could find yourself having to look for all your lost pension savings when you need it the most.
You may have moved house, misplaced the details and no longer receiving annual pension statements from your provider(s).
Pension scheme information can become lost as many people now choose to go paperless, so there’s emails to keep track of as well as paperwork.

How to trace lost pension savings

Finding the details of a lost workplace pension can be a little easier than finding the details of a personal pension. Often your employer, or former employer (if they are still in existence), should have the details of their pension provider.

It can often be a little bit more difficult finding the details of a lost personal pension. A good place to start would be to contact the pension provider that you set up the personal pension with.

Next steps

Start at home – dig out as much paperwork as you can and see if you can find the details of any pensions you have forgotten about.
Take a look at any previous employment contract and old payslips and check if there were any pension contribution deductions. If so, and you haven’t taken a refund, you could have a pension you’ve forgotten about.
Contact your previous employers and ask for the details of their pension schemes. They’ll be able to give you the pension provider’s contact details, so you can contact them directly to find out if you were a member of a pension scheme.
And you can use the Companies House website – they hold the names of all closed and existing companies registered in the UK.
If you are still having difficulty finding the details of a lost pension, you can use the government’s online pension tracing service.

Visit their website www.gov.uk/find-lost-pension or call them on 0845 6002 537.

Check if your pension contributions were refunded

In the past when leaving an employer, you could have had a refund of your pension contributions after only being in a pension for a short time.

So, it’s important to consider whether your pension is actually lost, or if your pension contributions could have already been refunded.

There are several key dates to help you check whether this applies to you:

If you left your employer before 1975: it’s almost certain that you’d have had a refund of your pension contributions. If you did not pay into the pension scheme, then the chances are you will not be entitled to anything – the only exception will be if you worked there for a considerable amount of time, usually over 15 years.
If you left your employer between April 1975 and April 1988: you may have a pension if you were over the age of 26 and had completed over 5 years’ service. If not, it’s almost certain that you’d have received a refund of your pension contributions.
If you left your employer after 1988: you may be entitled to a pension, as long as you completed over two years’ service for your employer. If you left before completing two years, it’s almost certain that you’d have received a refund of your pension contributions.

If in any doubt you should contact any previous employer(s) for absolute clarification.

Take a look at the steps below if you think you have a lost pension and don’t think you’ve received a refund.

Once you’ve found a lost pension provider’s details

You’ll need to contact them to give them as many details about yourself, so they can trace your lost pension savings quickly and easily. They’ll need:

your name (current and previous, if different) date of birth and National Insurance number
your address (current and where you resided when you think you had the lost pension)
the date you joined and left the pension scheme (if known).

And if it’s a workplace pension:

the name of the company you worked for
the address of the company you worked for (in case your company had multiple branches/outlets)
the date you began working for the company and the date you left the company.

Find out as much information as you can

It’s important to find out as much information as possible about any pension scheme you may be part of. For example, you should ask:

what’s the current value of the pension pot, and the estimated value on your expected retirement date?
are there any management charges, and if so, how much?
is there a nominated beneficiary?
is it a defined benefit scheme or a defined contribution scheme?
would there be any charges if I wanted to transfer the pension pot to another provider?
are there any pension guarantees included e.g. Guaranteed Annuity Rates?

Once you have the full details about your lost pension savings, you may wish to get advice. You could choose to leave it as it is until you reach retirement age or, if you have other pensions, you could consider combining them into one pot – making it easier to manage and keep track of.

Henry Tapper
Age Wage Ltd

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

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HOW TO FIND THAT LOST PENSIONDominic2023-12-01T12:17:13+00:00

WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE PENSION AGE?

TODAY’S BLOG

WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE PENSION AGE?

It sounds an easy question, but right now it is a moving target. If you answered 65, you are wrong because that stopped being the State Pension Age (SPA) last December. Until 6 October 2020 SPA is in a transitional period where there is no specific age, just a set of dates, each separated by two months, on which it arrives, depending upon date of birth. So, for example, if you were born between 6 February 1954 and 5 March 1954, you reach your SPA on 6 July 2019. From 6 October 2020 until 5 April 2026, SPA will remain at 66, before starting another two-year transitional period, en route to 67. To provide an example… John Travolta was born 18 February 1954. You will remember him as a 20 year-old Danny Zuko in the 1978 movie “Grease” (about the summer of ’58). He played opposite Olivia Newton-John, who is now 70.

And the result is…

Source: National Statistics

The SPA has been on the rise since 2010, when the process of equalising state pension ages for men and women began. The effect of that controversial reform can already be seen in UK labour market statistics. In April 2010, at the start of the equalisation process, 58.5% of women aged between 50 and 64 were in the work. By January 2019 that proportion had risen to 68.1% – an increase of almost a sixth. As the graph shows, in that age band there are still proportionately more men in work, but the gap between the sexes has been narrowing since 2010.

Beyond 65, too

The trend of increased working life extends beyond age 65, as the two lower lines on the graph indicate. In January 2019, 7.9% of women aged 65 and over were still working, as were 14.2% of men. Many of the jobs involved are part-time.

The rise in SPA is not the only driver to the changing age profile of the workforce. Legislation that largely prohibits mandatory retirement ages has made it easier for employees to keep in harness. Tight labour markets – UK unemployment is under 4% – has encouraged employers to hang on to staff, on a full or part-time basis, rather than compete for new employees.

The income factor

Probably the main reason for the growing grey-haired workforce is a financial one: they need the earnings. The state pension (theoretically £168.60 a week in 2019/20) hardly offers a comfortable retirement. Another factor is the gradual demise of final salary pension schemes, which most private sector employers have now closed to existing employees as well as new recruits. Such schemes often made it easier to take early retirement, especially if the employer added redundancy incentives. Workplace pension ages have also been rising too, often tracking the move in SPA.

Action

When you retire should be a decision you make, not a timing effectively set by the state or financial pressure. The only way to have that freedom of choice is to build up sufficient resources before you retire, by way of pensions and/or other investments

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

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WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE PENSION AGE?Dominic2023-12-01T12:17:21+00:00

TALKING MONEY – MARCH 2019

TODAY’S BLOG

TALKING MONEY – MARCH 2019

By now you will have recieved the postal copy of Talking Money. It has all the usual informative pieces. I would value your thoughts on this, do you even read it? I know some do and seem to find it helpful, but I’m not daft enough to believe that everyone reads it cover to cover. The reason for the question is that we have launched a new client publication – which we have called Spotlight. This has arrived at the office from the printers today and I’m pleased with how it looks.

You can access a digital version of Talking Money here.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

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TALKING MONEY – MARCH 2019Dominic2023-12-01T12:17:31+00:00

WITHDRAWING MONEY FROM YOUR PENSION

TODAY’S BLOG

WITHDRAWING MONEY FROM YOUR PENSION

I was recently asked to contribute to a piece that appeared in The Telegraph on 15/02/2019. The journalist, Jonathan Jones had heard of me and asked if I would offer some insight into the maths that he was posed with.

The short version is that a 69-year old reader had a pension pot of about £500,000 and wanted £35,000 a year as income, which is about 7% of the fund. The crunch question is was this sustainable?

Sustainable Withdrawal Rate

The short answer is no it isn’t likely to be. However, it is all about context, for starters, the investors other assets, state of health, lifestyle, marital and family circumstances. However, I was asked to ignore this. In the real world of financial planning, no good adviser would ignore these important elements, but certainly for the sake of maths, I was and remain happy to provide the basic outline.

It is historically “good advice” to assume a 4% income as sustainable. This can increase with inflation each year and ensure that the original fund remains alive. All of this is subject to the real world of investment returns, charges and taxes and to put it bluntly, investor behaviour.

REVIEWS ARE VITAL

I don’t know any adviser that would set up an investment and a withdrawal of 4% a year and never review this. I imagine there are a few out there, just not those that I meet or have any sort of professional relationship with. All financial planning is based on the premise that life changes and plans need reviewing. Whilst I advocate cash flow modelling, which is a brilliant tool, it is a very good aid to understanding the future, but not predicting it. Life and investment returns are not linear. Stuff happens, things change.

I stand by everything in the article, but would caveat it with some real world experience and impress the need to review. The certainty of outcomes is myth. There is no way that someone can say with certainty, that taking £20,000 a year from a £500,000 will last for another 50 years. Its ought to, based upon historic data, it would have done, but that’s why we review.

High Equity Content

Certainly, more exposure to the real engine of a portfolio (equities / stocks) is vital and the more you have the more likely you are to have a rising income for life, but a far more volatile experience. In the real-world investors behave badly, anxiety turns to fear which turns to panic, which turns into a request to “sell, sell, sell” yet this is almost certainly, always the wrong thing to do in a portfolio of globally diverse holdings. I demonstrated this using our software, showing the historic sustainable withdrawal rates for different portfolios and the chance of future success. We also revealed the impact of life expectancy. Of course Jonathan didn’t have the page space to go into depth on the fullness of our conversation and he may also have been heavily edited. That is the difficult life of any journalist, who must create something to catch attention and fill space. The job of a financial planner is explanation, understanding and constructing a robust, reviewed ongoing service.

The art of self-delusion

This is something that many investors, particularly DIY investors believe that they are immune to (lack of fear). Most end up chasing returns, usually buying the current hot tips or best performers. However, this is not the Premier League, it is the real world of investing, past performance guarantees nothing and is certainly no indicator of the future when it comes to stock selection “success”. See Dalbar.com for information about how badly investors underperform.

I think the article is a good overview, but please do not infer advice from it. Context is everything. For all I know, the investor concerned was born in 1950 with a life expectancy of a few months and may have a much younger spouse with three or four children. The advice should always be suitable to the circumstances of the investor.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

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PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

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Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk Call – 020 8542 8084

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WITHDRAWING MONEY FROM YOUR PENSIONDominic2023-12-01T12:17:34+00:00

THE F-WORD

TODAY’S BLOG

THE F WORD

The F-word in my world is fees. Today we received news that the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has increased its “levy” on financial advisers to a whopping £516m which is a hefty increase on the £468m previously.

There are many reasons for the increase, but the main one is that many investors have been duped into moving their pension into a SIPP (a Self-Invested Personal Pension). There is nothing wrong with a SIPP in principle, it is just another pension wrapper and the vast majority are perfectly good, indeed arguably rather brilliant. However, it’s also what is inside.

A SIPP can hold lots of investments, remember in 2005 Gordon Brown opening the way and then back-tracking on allowing people to put a private residence in a SIPP (thank goodness!). The “Self-Invested” bit of the SIPP really is an opening to put anything into a pension that “qualifies”. Anyway, some “advisers” have encouraged people to use all manner of weird investments, everything from storage pods, to teak farms in Thailand, car parking spaces to any hairbrained idea. These are “unregulated” investments – clue on the tin.

The backstop agreement

These investors have a genuine grievance for bad advice. Well… more scamming than advice. Therefore, they can turn to the FSCS, who in turn “approaches” (demands) payment from the rest of us upright advisers to cover the cost of the miscreants that peddle this rubbish. There are about 5,300 adviser firms in the UK, one or two huge ones and the rest are small businesses. The bill is shared between us (feel free to do the sums). In short that means we cannot keep stomaching the lion-share of a bill for which we are not culpable and so it is reflected in our charges to clients. Hardly a fair system, indeed, like others it is miserable and broken.

Look inside

For the record we arrange SIPPS for our clients, with proper SIPP companies and ONLY hold regulated investments within them. You hold properly listed funds which are composed of shares and bonds of great companies of the world.

If you are a client with a SIPP arranged through us, do not panic, all that’s in your pension is good stuff (unless you mucked around with it or “gave the keys” to another adviser). I recently took on a client who has a SIPP, but his adviser put some awful stuff in it. We have been able to unpick some of it, but not all. Totally unnecessary, unhelpful and illiquid.

Cold Calling Ban – Stop them at the gate

As a final note, anyone (you don’t know) that calls or emails you out of the blue is breaking the law – NO COLD CALLING. Some of you helped us with this initiative, started by another decent adviser (Darren Cooke) in Derbyshire and this eventually became law on Wednesday 9th January 2019. So hopefully this will reduce cold calling (I’m not naive enough to assume it will end). Some interesting issues about cold calling, greed, ethnicity and capitalism were raised in the film “Sorry to bother you”.. it went a little off point and lost its potential purpose, well that’s what I thought. Here is the trailer, it raised some interesting questions. WARNING: its rude.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

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The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

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The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

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THE F-WORDDominic2023-12-01T12:17:36+00:00

ANOTHER FINE MESS

TODAY’S BLOG

ANOTHER FINE MESS

New movie Stan and Ollie is a real treat to those who have an affection for Laurel and Hardy. What could have been “another fine mess” was a moving tribute to one of the ground-breaking comedy double acts of cinematic history. As a child, in the 1970s I watched their films often on a Saturday morning on the 3-channel television. Whilst the cars were a bit odd and shot in black and white, they didn’t seem particularly dated, at least no more than others – as the television diet for children also included a fair amount of black and white 1950s American syndicated shows like Whirlybirds, Champion the Wonder Horse, Flash Gordon, Zorro and Lassie.

I have to admit I had reservations about the film but Steve Coogan’s performance or perhaps impression of Stan Laurel was fantastic. John C Reilly also provides an impressive performance of Oliver Hardy. The movie itself is charming and shouldn’t disappoint any fans. It reveals a deep friendship between the pair and provides an insight into their working partnership and some of its difficulties. Notably the different manner in which they approached their contracts at work and the way money should be handled.

SOLOMONS IFA - STAN AND OLLIE MOVIE REVIEW FOR BLOG

Wrong end of the contract

Mr Hardy seemed to have something of a gambling habit, it isn’t clear from the story if this was problematic, but it is inferred. What I had not realised was that unlike the movie stars of today, they were employees of Hal Roach. He was a ground-breaking film maker of the day, but also a shrewd businessman. there was no bonus scheme or royalties and if a film failed or succeeded, they were paid the same. Laurel was clearly more financially astute, demanding that his contract be properly revised, Hardy’s contract still had time to run. The contracts were deliberately established this way by Roach, precisely to prevent them from negotiating together. Hardy seems not to have appreciated the implications and also lacked the courage to stand up to Roach, perhaps (I don’t know) because his gambling required the certainty of a regular income, not least to provide for his 3 ex-wives.

Here today, gone tomorrow

Laurel and Hardy movies were shown around the world and Roach made them shoot each in several major European languages. They were coached and read from out-of-sight blackboards, phonetically, all to maximise revenue for Roach. Laurel and Hardy were consequently never financially secure, at least not by today’s Hollywood standards. The movie picks up at the end of their career, when they are mainly forgotten and having to earn a crust. Many are surprised that they are not retired, but this is a case of having to work.

Genius at work?

As much as Laurel and Hardy loved their work and working together, clearly, as a financial planner, the aim is to ensure that you have the choice about whether to work or not. Retirement is a poor word; a better phrase is “financial Freedom Day” – the day you choose to work because you want to rather than have to.

In any partnership, speaking the same language and having shared goals is vital to financial wellbeing. Your financial planning really doesn’t need to be comedic, it is your life’s work so invest in the right counsel with a proper financial planner.

Here is the trailer. I’m confident it will make you smile.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

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GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk Call – 020 8542 8084

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Are we a good fit for you?

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ANOTHER FINE MESSDominic2023-12-01T12:17:38+00:00

ANNUAL ALLOWANCE EXCESS

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The Annual Allowance Charge

Arguably the most dreadful bit of recent pension changes is the annual allowance charge. This arises for anyone that contributes more than the annual allowance towards pensions during a tax year. To most people £40,000 a year into pensions is a lot of money so on the surface this is nothing short of yet another raid on higher-earners.

The annual allowance is really £40,000 or 100% of your earned income, whichever is lower. However, if your income is over £150,000 then the allowance reduces gradually down to £10,000 for anyone earning £210,000 or more, this is termed the Tapered Annual Allowance. Just for some context anyone earning over £150,000 has lost their personal allowance (income before any tax is paid) and pays a tax rate of 45% on income above £150,000.

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Excessive Tax? Not Enough Voters

You can exceed the annual allowance in various ways – the amount for those investing money to build a pension is straight-forward. If you and your employer pay more than your annual allowance into pensions, you suffer an income tax charge on the excess at 45%. Easy, maybe not fair, but easy.

However, if you are a member of a good old-fashioned final salary (defined benefit) pension, well it’s a little more complex. The annual allowance is not calculated based upon how much you paid into a scheme, but on how much your pension improved by. So if you had a pay rise… this makes life more complex. If your pension increased by more than £2,500 a year (which admittedly is a very good pension for another year of employment) then you are likely to exceed the annual allowance of £40,000. If you have the minimum annual allowance as a high earner, then your pension only needs to improve by probably £527 – £625 a year.

£561m Extra Tax

This all became the new norm from the 2015/16 tax year. HMRC collected £179m in extra tax revenue as a result. However, this has now jumped massively as the reality sinks home for many high earners, rising to £561m for 2016/17.

Some people can get their employer pension scheme to pay the “fine” (tax) most cannot. In 2016/17 only 2,340 people achieved this which accounted for £44m (8%) of the tax however the clear majority had to pay up themselves – all 16,590 of those that realised!

I might call this a disincentive to save for your retirement, or daylight robbery…. Take your pick, but fair and sensible is most certainly is not.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

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ANNUAL ALLOWANCE EXCESSDominic2023-12-01T12:17:49+00:00

DOCTOR, DOCTOR… IN THE TELEGRAPH

TODAY’S BLOG

DOCTOR DOCTOR… IN THE TELEGRAPH

You may have come across my details in a piece in The Telegraph on Monday 10 September 2018 by financial journalist La ura Miller. Laura outlines a problem that is being observed in hospitals around the UK, in that some doctors are in the ludicrous position of effectively being forced to reduce their available hours due to the additional taxes that they will suffer for additional income. This has the inevitable potential to create longer waiting lists.

Before we go any further, let me say that Laura asked me to check some sums from a Consultant doctor who was making the point about the annual allowance excess taxes. I have made no secret of the fact that I believe the tapered annual allowance is an utterly stupid Government policy. It isn’t the first and of course will not be the last.

THIS IS GOING TO HURT

My only concern is that some may interpret the information as “greedy doctors worry about tax and so work less”. So I wish to make one point crystal clear. I have advised medics for over 25 years. I have met hundreds of them. I have never, NEVER, not even once met one that was motivated by money as a career choice. The early career of a junior doctor is particularly traumatic and frankly the NHS and Department of Health should be ashamed of the working pressures and timetables that they put them under. If you need any convincing, simply have a look at Adam Kay’s Book – “This is Going To Hurt”. Yet the system continues, because it is always under strain and there are not enough doctors to do the work within “normal” working hours or shifts.

DOCTORS EARNINGS

It is true that some doctors can earn very good incomes. The £10,000 annual allowance only applies to those with income over £210,000 – which is a lot of money by most standards. However, these are people that are highly skilled and at the top of their profession, have given way more than their pound of flesh and are constantly scrutinised for errors and lambasted by politicians and media whenever it suits. For the record, this is not Laura’s intent.

The rather ludicrous rules also impact any doctor whose pension income improves by more than £2,106 in a year. This too would push them over the standard annual allowance and potentially suffer excess tax charges. The tax charge is treated effectively as income tax at the highest rate, despite the fact that the pension has not actually been paid to them, conceivably might never be paid to them if they were to die before retirement. In essence a tax on future, yet to be received income. This sort of rise in pension benefit could come from something as innocuous as moving up the grades, or perhaps for impressive work in the form of Clinical Excellence Awards – or even returning to a full-time post.

HEARING PROBLEM

This is all to do with the way in which the Annual Allowance is calculated for those in final salary schemes. I wrote to the previous Chancellor, twice, without reply on this subject when he presided over the introduced rules. Perhaps Laura will have more success.

Suffice to say this is a complex piece of pension planning, a headache that neither the doctor, nor the NHS really should have to waste time on. Yet my advice is to all doctors is to request a Pension Annual Savings Statement as well as their Total Rewards Statement and ensure all payslips are carefully retained – as well as information about any and every form of income they receive from all possible sources. This is more unpaid work, increased stress and bureaucracy to satisfy some utterly numpty thinking at HM Treasury…. Nothing new in that though is there.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

DOCTOR, DOCTOR… IN THE TELEGRAPHDominic2023-12-01T12:17:52+00:00

THREE DECADES OF RETIREMENT

Three Decades of Retirement

Three decades of retirement is the prospect that many people face if you believe that longevity is improving in general. That’s three decades to live off your investments, pensions and savings combined with any other forms of income from your State Pension and perhaps an employer’s final salary (defined benefit) pension which typically begin payments at 60, 65 or 67.

Three decades is a long time, with a lot of living to be done. To put this into perspective, it is now 2018, 30 years ago was 1988, which frankly does not seem that long ago does it? You remember 1988. It was the year the SDP merged with the Liberals, Margaret Thatcher became the longest serving PM and Comic Relief was launched. Nurses went on strike over pay. Red Nose Day raised £15m within a month the £1 note became obsolete and the Chancellor of the day Nigel Lawson cut the basic rate of tax to just 25%.

If you are into your sport, well Liverpool were beaten in the FA Cup final by Wimbledon. Graeme Hick scored a record 405 runs in a county match. Sandy Lyle won the US Masters. “Gaza” became the first £2m footballer moving from Newcastle to Spurs. The Seoul Olympics saw Team GB win 5 gold medals (hockey, swimming, rowing, shooting and sailing).

Released in 1987, Faith was the top selling album of 1988.

Another year, just like any other…

As with every year, it had its share of horror and disaster, Piper Alpha, Pan Am 103 exploding over Lockerbie, killing 207 people and a train crash at Clapham Junction killed 35 people. Edwina Currie managed to create an egg crisis. British films released included “Buster”, “A Fish Called Wanda” and “A Handful of Dust”. Michael Douglas won best actor for his role in “Wall Street” ad “The Last Emperor” picked up a stack of awards. Kylie Minogue started her pop career with “I Should Be So Lucky” (she was) and life was “Perfect” for Fairground Attraction. I was one of 80,000 at Wembley for the “Free Nelson Mandela Concert” and his 70th birthday. He was still imprisoned (not released until 1990).

Then and Now

If you are over the age of 40 this may jog a few memories of 30 years ago. The UK population was about 56m today its about 66.5m. There were about 55,000 first-time graduates, now the number is around 414,000. The Bank of England’s base rate began 1988 at 8.37% but ended at 12.87% (yesterday the Bank increased the rate from 0.50% to 0.75% and some got worried). The FTSE100 closed the year at 1,793 yesterday it closed at 7,575 and that excludes all income from dividends over 30 years. A 10-year UK Government Bond paid about 9.79% in 1988, today around 1.23%. In short equities have gone up, Bonds have gone down. £100 in 1988 would need to be £260.44 in 2018 simply to be “worth” the same because of inflation. That’s an average rate of about 3.24%, in short, the value of your pound has more than halved.

Multiple Choices, Make them Count

This is history, a version of it. If you are now in your mid 40s or older, this is time spent. Who knows how long any of us have left but making the most of life and getting our money to last, whatever it brings is the prospect that you face. We work with clients taking a long-term perspective of life and money. We regularly review progress and make adjustments to ensure that your financial planning remains on course. Change is the constant that we all live with, but many investment principles are timeless, knowing what to adjust is probably more important than knowing you need to.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

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THREE DECADES OF RETIREMENTDominic2023-12-01T12:17:53+00:00