This new tax year starting on 6 April brings a range of changes that could affect your financial planning. The start of the new tax year will see many allowances and tax bands frozen once again. In reality these freezes are tax increases as the government has effectively allowed inflation to determine how much greater a proportion of your income and estate should pass to the Treasury. Had the allowances and bands all been increased in line with inflation, then they would be r

Recent research on planned retirement ages has produced some unexpected and perhaps unrealistic results. The next increase in State Pension Age (SPA) to 67 will start to take effect in about two years’ time. Under current legislation the move to a SPA of 68 begins in April 2044, but that timing could change. Seven years ago, a report commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) suggested that phasing in for SPA 68 should start from 2037. However, the government

Individual Savings Accounts will celebrate their 25th birthday on 6 April 2024. A quarter of a century ago, Personal Equity Plans (PEPs) and Tax Exempt Special Savings Accounts (TESSAs), both inventions of Conservative chancellors, were replaced by Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), introduced by a Labour chancellor. To a large extent, the exercise was a rebadging rather than the creation of a brand new savings plan. Nevertheless, the new name survived the swing back to a Co

What was almost certainly the last Budget before the election was a serving of the widely expected, sprinkled with a handful of small surprises. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, delivered the Spring Budget 2024 on 6 March. As anticipated, it was a typical pre-election event focused on tax relief measures – including further national insurance contributions (NICs) cuts – and the promise of a new savings bond from National Savings. With little fiscal wriggle room,

Public opinion is pessimistic about the future of the State pension. Ask yourself these two questions: 1. Do you believe that the State pension will be around in 30 years’ time? 2. Do you think that the State pension will keep pace with prices over the next ten years? If you said ‘no’ to both, then your view places you in the minority, although a sizeable one. Polling research undertaken for the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) last year revealed that a third of wo

The media storm surrounding HMRC taxing eBay and other online sellers from the start of 2024 was, in fact, itself counterfeit goods. A crop of stories across social and traditional media swirled across the start of the new year about HMRC cracking down on ‘side hustle’ tax from 1 January, leaving sellers using sites like eBay and Vinted feeling uncertain. Coming after an early December announcement that HMRC had effectively closed its main self-assessment helpline until 1 Feb