RISING COST OF A SECOND HOME

TODAY’S BLOG

RISING COST OF A SECOND HOME

Second home owners face a clampdown over a tax loophole that can save them money by claiming the properties are available for holiday lets. Currently around 60,000 properties classed as holiday lets are liable for business tax rather than council tax, which in the vast majority of cases currently means paying nothing at all. The Treasury said it would “ensure that owners of properties that are not genuine businesses are not able to reduce their tax liability by declaring that a property is available for let but make little or no realistic effort to actually let it out”. It was announced as part of a raft of consultation documents on tax published by the Treasury which also included plans to shake up air passenger duty (APD).

SOLOMONS IFA RISING COSTS OF A Holiday Home

THE TAXMAN COMETH

The holiday lets move relates to properties in England which the owner declares are intended to be made available to let 140 days in the coming year, making them liable for business rates rather than council tax. In about 96% of cases, they have such a low rateable value that they qualify for small business rates relief which means they pay nothing at all.

There is currently no requirement for checks to verify that the properties are actually commercially rented out.

Following a consultation launched in 2018, the government said it would now legislate to tighten the rules. Also included in the series of consultations were proposals to cut down on inheritance tax red tape, reducing the paperwork families need to fill out. The government also published an interim report on its review of the business rates system – long the subject of calls for change from the retail sector – detailing responses from some firms. But a final report will not be published until the autumn.

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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

RISING COST OF A SECOND HOMEDominic2023-12-01T12:13:08+00:00

THE TROUBLE WITH CASH ISAs

TODAY’S BLOG

THE TROUBLE WITH ISAS

HMRC have published their data about ISAs to the end of the 2018/19 tax year. Their data is reliable or should be because you will recall that each ISA requires your unique National Insurance number. As a result, it is possible to provide accurate data about income, age, gender, and employment.

The deeply disturbing news is that the vast bulk of ISAs are cash ISAs. Cash ISAs are glorified deposit accounts, cash is not a sensible long-term investment strategy, it is a perfect short-term spending strategy. As cash rates have declined from not very much to virtually nothing over the last 20 years, Cash ISAs have basically failed to keep pace with inflation.

“BUT CASH ISAs ARE LOW RISK”

“But Cash ISAs are low risk” you cry, well… what you really mean is that the value doesn’t go up and down (volatility) your assertion would be right, but when you factor inflation into the actual real world, then Cash ISAs are pretty much basically always guaranteed to go down. The risk you run is one of running out of money and the power of your pound shrinks.

There may of course be good reasons for holding Cash ISAs, but based on income range, people over £30,000 generally have more stocks and shares ISAs than Cash ISAs – though its still a fairly close-run thing.

“BUT AT LEAST CASH ISAs ARE TAX FREE”

Cash ISAs are tax free, that is certainly true. What that means is that the interest paid to you on your deposit is tax free. All good… well, it was. Since 6 April 2016 there has been a personal savings allowance. Basic Rate (20%) taxpayers are able to earn interest of £1,000 without it being taxed. Higher Rate taxpayers have a £500 allowance and Additional Rate – well, of course we know that it is politically expedient to be seen to punish anyone earning £150,000 or more, so no tax-free savings for you!

WHY LOCK INTO A DEPRECIATING ASSET?

Taking a basic rate taxpayer with interest rates at something like 1.5% at best, then you would need more than £66,000 in your cash ISA before any tax would be applied to the interest. At 1% it would require £100,000. Higher rate taxpayers simply halve the numbers. As for the tax that would be applied on interest above that – well no more than a round of drinks for most people.

A quick trawl of Cash ISA rates today (30/06/2020) and the very best rate I can find is 1.25% if you want to lock your cash up for 7 years… why anyone would do this is beyond me. Then there is the aggravation of regularly looking for a better rate and the hassle of moving your really rather duff Cash ISA into a different one. Life is too short for this nonsense isn’t it?

Similarly, junior ISAs – why bother holding cash for a child for 18 years and missing out on investment growth over nearly 2 decades. It is madness. Investors and savers really must understand what risk really means.

The value of ISAs to the end of the data was £584billion, of which cash ISAs account for 46% yet make up 76% of all ISAs. The chart below (from the HMRC bulletin – so labelled Chart 4) shows the fluctuating but growing value of shares in ISAs. Remember all are being added to each tax year, but the vast majority of the money each year goes into Cash ISAs.

CONFESSIONS OF A CASH ADDICT

OK – so you have some cash ISAs. I am not saying you shouldn’t have them, but only do so if you intend to spend the money fairly soon (within 3-5 years tops). Otherwise you are missing out on a lot of growth and the ability to keep the power of your £ working for you. If you would like a review, do some of the legwork, compile a list of your Cash ISAs, the balances, the Banks or Building Societies that they are with and the current rate of interest you earn. If there is a fixed rate, confirm when that ends. Then send me the information.

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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

THE TROUBLE WITH CASH ISAsDominic2023-12-01T12:13:16+00:00

TAXED INCOME ?

TODAY’S BLOG

TAXED INCOME?

We have all applauded those that work in the NHS to help reduce deaths and improve recovery of anyone suffering from COVID19 or frankly any other life-threatening condition. We have also become aware of our reliance on people, who are not terribly well paid, but ensure that our local food is picked, packed, stocked, stacked and delivered and or course countless other services.

We have marvelled at the amount of money raised by a man aged 99 who celebrated his 100th birthday and was honoured for his efforts. These are all good things, but it must surely leave you wondering why the extra money is needed to pay for the NHS. Blaming multinationals like Amazon is all too easy, perhaps we need to reflect on our own tax system.

Here is my problem – we know that taxes are required, but we also know that the State wastes money. We all have an opinion on who, what, why and how our taxes should be made available to. My job is to help you to ensure that your money outlasts you. I do this by using investments, getting you to think and plan ahead for all manner of possibilities and I use the prevailing legitimate tax system properly.

£2,500 A MONTH – THE NEW BASE LINE?

The Government seem to believe that most people can survive on £2,500 a month (taxable), that’s £30,000 a year. In practice excluding national insurance, that would be a net income of roughly £26,500 with basic rate tax paid of £3,500. I have also excluded any pension payments or charitable giving. You will recall that there is a personal allowance of £12,500 (0% income tax) for those with income below £100,000.

By way of simply showing how an adviser can achieve this level of income for you (tax free) here are some options. Doing them all would far exceed the target £26,500 income, but hopefully you will see my point.

If aged 55 but not yet drawing a State Pension. You could crystallise £16,665 of an investment-based pension. This would generate £4,166.25 as tax free cash and £12,498.75 as taxable income, but as it is within the £12,500 threshold there would be no income tax to pay. However you would then find yourself restricted to a maximum £4000pa of new contributions to pensions (called the Money Purchase Annual Allowance or MPAA).
Alternatively, you could simply crystallise £106,000 of an investment based pension, take 25% (£26,500) as tax free cash and leave the balance to grow.
An investment portfolio will regularly have gains (that’s the point after all). A growth of say 5% over a year on a fund of £234,000 can use £12,300 of the capital gains tax allowance – 0% tax. Trigger a larger gain and the gains above £12,300 are taxed at a lower rate of 10% or maybe 20% (but not if you do these other things).
Perhaps rent a room for a tax free £7,500 a year
Draw 5% of your capital back from an investment bond, so a Bond of £100,000 would provide £5,000
Any money drawn from ISAs would be tax free, but taking say £8,535 from an ISA would take the total “income” from all these to £50,000 and not a penny of income tax would be paid.

EARNED INCOME IS TAXED MORE

Yet if this was earned income in 2020/21 income tax of £7,498.20 would be due with a further £4,860 of National Insurance a total of £12,358.20 leaving a net income of £37,641.80. This is makes full use of the basic rate tax, any income above this would be taxed at 40% or 45%.

The point I am making is that how much tax is paid is very much dependent on where your money is and how it is generated. It’s certainly the case that not everyone has these sums of money (which are likely to have been taxed before). However, this is only the basic stuff and exposes the problem of a complex tax system that punishes those earning income far more than those with capital.

IF YOU ARE NOT A CLIENT

If you are reading this and not a client, do not conclude that the above is advice to you, it is not. The calculations that we do can be complex and relate to each individual situation, never rely on generic information about money, except for spend less than you earn.

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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

TAXED INCOME ?Dominic2023-12-01T12:13:17+00:00

PPI – ANOTHER PAYOUT?

TODAY’S BLOG

PPI – ANOTHER PAYOUT?

Just when you thought you had seen the last of PPI, I am here to tell you that it’s not over until the tax taken is repaid… If you’re one of the millions of people who’ve shared in the £34billion of PPI repaid (so far), you may have paid tax unnecessarily. If so, and your payout happened in the last four tax years, you are due money back. The money you get paid back for PPI can have up to three main elements:

A refund of the PPI you paid.
If the bank (outrageously) added an extra loan to your original loan just to pay for the PPI you get back any interest you were charged on this extra loan.
You get Statutory Interest (at eight per cent a year) on the total of both those sums, for each year since you got the PPI.

Only the third element is taxable. Any tax taken is usually shown on your payout statement. Tax is due because this Statutory Interest is designed to return you to the position you’d have been in if you hadn’t had PPI. If tax is due on PPI payouts, most firms deduct it automatically, at 20 per cent, before you get the money. That has always been an issue for non-taxpayers. However, since April 6, 2016, far more people have been owed tax back, as that’s when the personal savings allowance launched. It allows most taxpayers to earn £1,000 a year of savings interest, tax-free. Since then, while most savings interest has been paid without any tax taken off, PPI still has 20 per cent automatically deducted. Therefore, oversimplifying somewhat, it counts as savings interest, as if you’d earned it on that saved cash.

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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

PPI – ANOTHER PAYOUT?Dominic2023-12-01T12:17:00+00:00

THE TAXMAN COMETH… AGAIN

TODAY’S BLOG

THE TAXMAN COMETH… AGAIN

A week today is deadline pay to send in your self-assessment tax return and payment to HMRC. The 31st January brings an end to arguably the worst month of the year with a tax deadline. Most people will be very familiar with 31/01 by now, but invariably a lot of people file their returns late.

In February 2019, HMRC confirmed that 93.68% of people filed their returns on time, which was a new record. There were 11.56 million taxpayers that had to file a return, 731,186 didn’t do so on time. Fines for not filing a return on time are £100, even if no tax is due. So that comes in at a neat £73,118,600 in immediate fines. After 3 months (30 April) additional penalties are applied at £10 a day.

Left until the last minute.com…

A thumping 735,258 filed on the final day itself (6% of those that had to). Remember this is sending a return for the tax year that ended 5th April in the previous year!

Some 60,000 people tried to file their return between 4pm and 5pm on the 31st January 2019. That is really leaving it to the last minute (which is midnight of that day).

IMPORTANT – Pension Tax Tips Pre-Return:

These tips help taxpayers get all the pension tax relief to which they are entitled or to avoid an unexpected tax bill in years to come.

A) Claim higher rate relief on personal pension contributions:

Many pension savers who pay income tax at the higher (or additional) rate, may be unaware that they need to claim higher rate relief through their tax return on contributions into a personal pension. Employee contributions into a personal pension or group personal pension automatically attract pension tax relief at the basic rate through the ‘relief at source’ method. This tax relief is claimed by the pension provider on behalf of the member. But those who pay tax at the 40% or 45% rate only get their extra tax relief if they claim it through their tax return. For example, someone who pays £80 into a personal pension automatically gets an extra £20 in basic rate relief added to their pension. But if they pay tax at 40% they are entitled to another £20 in tax relief which they will only get if they enter this information on their tax return.

B) Report contributions in excess of your annual allowance

Individuals are expected to report on their tax return any pension contributions (from themselves or their employer) into a Defined Contribution pension and/or any growth in Defined Benefit pension rights in excess of the Annual Allowance, so that additional tax can be paid.

C) Report contributions made on your behalf under ‘scheme pays’

HMRC recently admitted that some taxpayers were failing to report on their tax return that a pension tax charge had been paid on their behalf by their occupational pension scheme. A new FOI obtained by Royal London shows that in 2016/17 just over 1,000 people failed to report this information. As the number of people affected by ‘scheme pays’ has grown rapidly since 2016/17, it is likely that thousands of people are now failing to report this information. The FOI from HMRC says that this is a case of ‘under-reporting, not under-payment’, but taxpayers are expected to give complete information on their tax return.

And finally…

There were some strange excuses too… here is a video HMRC put together about them.

Here are some things that didn’t pass the valid expense claims.

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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

THE TAXMAN COMETH… AGAINDominic2023-12-01T12:17:01+00:00

TAX AND POLITICS

TODAY’S BLOG

TAX AND POLITICS

The General election is a few weeks away, the over-egged promises are being spouted by all sides. We really must seem like a very dim bunch to those that are so wrapped up in their political ideology. Anyway, I am not here to share my political views, simply to remind you of some basic truths.

I heard one item on the news as I travelled to the office the other morning. This was another politician using the word “free” to describe what the electorate would receive. This is an interesting choice of words. I was also somewhat interested in the bashing of the uber rich. I am not in that bracket (!) and frankly there is no possibility that I ever would be. However I was surprised that some people seem to believe that those with vast wealth actually have it all in bank account that can be easily raided. Like them or not the uber rich hold assets and some cash, but mainly assets.

This in mind, I thought that perhaps a little bit of education on the tax system may be of help. There are lots of numbers involved, but stick with it if you can (I know your time is precious).

INCOME TAX

Income tax accounts for about a third of all taxes received by HMRC. When combined with National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax and Bank Payroll Tax, these make up about 55% of all UK taxes. The amount of total tax paid to HMRC rises almost every year. In 2000/01 the total stood at £315,642m in the last tax year 2018/19 it had nearly doubled to £619,367 over 18 years.

THE UNION AND TAXES

In the tax year 2016/17 for those of you interested the total tax raised was £568,603m of which 87.2% was raised in England, 3.3% was raised in Wales, 7.4% raised in Scotland and 2.1% raised in Northern Ireland.

WHO PAYS INCOME TAX

In 2017 the UK population was about 66million. Not everyone pays income tax (children, sick, unemployed, not employed and choosing to not “work”). In practice about 40% of the population pay income tax (they may well pay other taxes, but so do the 40%). In the 2016/17 tax year, there were 26.3m income tax payers in the whole of the UK. Of these 15.1m were male and 11.2m were female. 20.9m were under 65 and 5.39m were 65+.

HOW MUCH INCOME TAX DID THEY PAY?

In the 2016/17 tax year (the most recent with the data analysis). There was £174,000million paid in income tax by 26.3m individuals. So thats about 30% of all the taxes paid were from these income tax payers. In the tax year concerned we basically have 4 categories of income taxpayer, those that simply pay the savings rate, those that pay basic rate (20%), higher rate (40%) and additional rate (45%).

As a reminder, in 2016/17 the personal allowance was £11,000 (the amount you can earn without paying income tax). This is reduced once your income is £100,000 at the rate of £1 for every £2 of income over £100,000. So anyone with an income of £122,000 has no personal allowance – all their income is taxable.

In terms of taxable income, the first £32,000 was taxed at 20%, from £32,001 – £150,000 tax is 40% and anything above £150,000 is taxed at 45%. Here is what happened.

As you can see from the table above, 81.75% of basic rate (20%) income taxpayers paid £57,300million in tax. You will remember Pareto’s law 80/20? Well its not far off, just over 80% of income taxpayers (83.78%) pay about 33% of the income tax bill. The next, smaller group, nearly 15% of the income taxpayer population of 40% taxpayers pay rather more between them – 37.3% of the total income tax bill. The smallest group (1.25% of taxpayers) those paying 45% income tax rates pay 29.6% of the total bill.

So whilst it is only part of the story – higher rate and additional rate taxpayers pay 66.9% of the income tax bill. Yet they only make up 16% of the income taxpayer population.

DO YOU WANT TO TAKE A POP AT THE 1%?

I am not supporting any political position here. I am simply making the statement that factually, if you pay income tax of 45% you are the 1%. As such you contribute a huge proportion of the total income tax bill. In exchange you have no personal allowance and probably a reduced pension allowance of £10,000 – less than an ISA. Let me also remind you that an income of £150,000 does not make you a millionaire…

If you fancy having a pop at the “millionaires”, taking the same data but just considering Additional Rate Taxpayers. There are 16,000 people with incomes of £1m+ (0.06% of income taxpayers) pay 8.79% of total income tax collected. So I will leave this here for you to mull over.

2016-17 Additional Rate Income tax payers

I have taken all this data from published HMRC and ONS documents that you can easily search and check yourself.

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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 Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

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

TAX AND POLITICSDominic2023-12-01T12:17:05+00:00

ANNUAL ALLOWANCE EXCESS

Solomons-financial-advisor-wimbledon-blogger

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.

Solomons-Inedependent-financial-advisors-London-700×500-images-2018-6

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

Email me to get in touch

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

FREEDOM BRINGS RESPONSIBILITY

Freedom Brings Responsibility

I hope that you are aware that since April 2015 pensions have had considerable improvements. Rather than having to buy an annuity anyone with a pension can simply take income from age 55 however they want (note that this age is gradually rising to be within 10 years of your State Pension Age which you can check here). As income it is taxable, but your pension fund has the benefit of 25% of anything “crystallised” being tax free. This you may remember, concerned some that there would be a rush on Lamborghini’s… which didn’t materialise. Mind you at £270,000 for a new Aventador, you would need to withdraw around double that to be able to pay the net price.

Many of you have been accessing your pensions under these new conditions. According to the latest HMRC data in Q2 (April to end June) of 2018 the number of individuals to whom payments were made reached 264,000. A total of £2,269m was paid out to them. The system has now been in place for 3 years and the value of all payments is now nearly £20,000m (some would say that’s £20bn).

gone-in-60-seconds-movie-poster-2000-1020192927

Gone in 0-60 Seconds?

The basic caveat is that once your pension fund is spent, well… its gone. There have been many mistakes made – particularly in terms of taking too much money out and paying tax unnecessarily. As the income from the pension is assessed as income, those that believe that they can simply have their money are right, but invariably forget that the amount means that they must pay 40% or 45% income tax. Clever, or rather sensible planning can keep tax at 20% or less.

The Government and HMRC are probably rather pleased with this, it means that they are taking way more tax than they would have done, particularly as many of those drawing money from pensions are doing so before they are even retired.

Tax First, Ask Questions Later

HMRC also apply their own brand of logic, which is tax first, ask questions later. In other words, you must reclaim tax when too much has been taken. Despite lobbying by financial advisers and the pension industry generally, HMRC aren’t budging on changing their approach, claiming that people are better off paying too much than too little and then having to find money to pay their tax. Since the start of pension freedoms this “over-taxing” has amounted to more than £280m. So hardly a surprise that they won’t budge. Of course, this ought to be reclaimed… but therein lies the problem of theory and practice and in any event the Office of Tax Simplification recently warned that pension freedom withdrawals are poorly understood… one might be forgiven for wondering what on earth the OTS achieve.

To put your mind at ease, you need to complete the snappy titled “P55”to reclaim overpaid tax on your flexible pension. You can find the form here.

Here’s a video of an Aventador being tested by Autocar… no need to form a queue.

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

Email me to get in touch

FREEDOM BRINGS RESPONSIBILITYDominic2023-12-01T12:17:54+00:00

What We Cannot Measure

Financial scams are sadly all too common, we cannot measure how much we save clients by helping them to avoid the many thieves, scammers and general loathsome low-lifes that are keen to part you from your money. Yet that is arguably one of the most significant aspects of my work – helping clients to avoid making mistakes, or at the very least, making fewer of them.

I had to admit to living in a bit of bubble within my sector. When I started as an adviser (1991) I thought most of them were crooks and little of my early experience of helping people get out of rubbish rip-off arrangements altered my opinion. Admittedly for a more complex set of reasons, I was acutely aware that when I turned up to events, my car was one of the “worst” in the car park. Others were doing much better… and frankly I thought I knew why.

Skip forward quite a few years and my opinion changed dramatically as a result of being part of the institute of Financial Planning (IFP) who are now the CISI. The people I met there were open, genuinely keen to help each other do a better job for our clients and were adamant that clients must be put first. This is the bubble that I have been in for quite a long time now. I forget, (because I tend not to come across them) that there are still a lot of horrid individuals who would raffle their family.

The Ark Scam

I have followed the Ark scam with some exasperation, these scams impact our regulatory fees (which rise as a result). In many senses they feel like rewarding failure, but I do appreciate that it’s not an easy job to stop every scam. However this morning I saw a tweet from a decent-minded adviser I know about a post from another. It is the very shocking and desperately disappointing story of Sue Flood’s experience with Ark and her pension. She has been failed miserably.

I would encourage you to read the item on Henry Tapper’s blog page. It is a verbatim script of her account of things from a meeting yesterday. I wish it were very different.

All I can say is that it is about time that some justice was provided to these 500 or so victims. The authorities responsible should wake up and get on with resolutions and bringing the crooks into the safety of prison.

It is this sort of stuff that we help clients avoid. There is a lot of it out there. Frankly Bitcoin is another and most of the rubbish that is covered in the press is decidedly bad for your wealth. Sue did just about as much as anyone could be reasonably expected to do, she checked out her adviser and everything seemed fine. As an industry (we still are) we have collectively failed many, many people like this.

Here is the link to the article.

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

Email me to get in touch

What We Cannot MeasureDominic2023-12-01T12:18:06+00:00

Warning to Landlords (and others)

The Government has made it very clear that tax evasion (not paying due taxes) is illegal and will be prosecuted. Whilst we may all have an opinion about the fairness of the law, failing to pay taxes invariably carries with it the real prospect of prison.

Richard Fuller found this to the cost of his liberty. As a landlord with various properties he failed to properly declare and pay the capital gains tax that was due on those he sold between 2006 and 2013. As a result, he evaded £157,725 of capital gains tax. As of last Friday, he has now begun a 27-month prison sentence and of course assets are being taken to pay the correct tax.

Hidden costs but not hidden taxes

Whilst there will always be people that do well from property investments, the reality is that property is not very liquid. There are also many forgotten or hidden costs – such as purchase and sale costs, insurance, lost rent, improvements, accountancy costs and of course tax on the gains.

It is never worth evading tax. It is illegal and anyone doing so will still find plenty of room at her Majesty’s prison service, despite reports of overcrowding. Mr Fuller was found guilty of cheating the public revenue and fraud by false representation by a jury at Winchester Crown Court.

What the Taxman said..

Richard Wilkinson, Assistant Director, Fraud Investigation Service, HMRC, said:

“Fuller thought he was above the law and decided not to declare or pay the tax due from the sale of some of his property portfolio. It is simply not acceptable to steal from UK taxpayers.

“HMRC will continue to pursue those who attempt to hide their gains on assets, their income, and investigate those who attack the tax system. We ask anyone with information about suspected tax fraud to contact our Fraud Hotline on 0800 788 887.”

Evasion is not Avoidance

In short, don’t mess with HMRC. It is never worth it. Tax evasion is illegal, tax avoidance (which is using legitimate arrangements within the tax laws – such as ISAs, pensions etc) is something that the Government encourage to help reduce reliance upon the State and invest in the UK economy.

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

Email me to get in touch

Warning to Landlords (and others)Dominic2023-12-01T12:18:27+00:00