Research has confirmed what your pocket already knows: UK taxes are at historically high levels. Measuring how taxes have changed over time involves much more than simply looking at tax rates. Politicians are well aware of this, but they also know that it tends to be changes in rates that make the headlines. Over the years, the result has been that adding extra money to the Exchequer’s coffers has involved considerable creativity on the part of the Treasury. Favourite methods

The administration of lasting powers of attorney (LPA) is on its way to becoming fully online. In an ideal world, you should have an LPA (or its Scottish or Northern Ireland equivalent) sitting beside your will. The absence of either can complicate matters considerably for your family. Without a will, the distribution of your estate defaults to the laws of intestacy, which may not match your (or your family’s) wishes. Similarly, if illness means that you cannot manage your ow

A new think tank report highlights the need to increase pension contributions. Over time, good ideas start to age. Take, for example, automatic enrolment into workplace pensions, which is now eleven years old. In some respects, it has been highly successful – about 80% of employees are now benefiting from pension contributions compared with 46% in 2011. However, other aspects of the legislation have started to look outdated after more than a decade. Since April 2019, the mand

New legislation has paved the way for important changes to automatic enrolment in workplace pensions. At the start of October, automatic enrolment in workplace pension schemes quietly celebrated its eleventh anniversary. The latest data (April 2021) from the Office for National Statistics shows that 79.4% of employees were members of workplace pension arrangements, a rise from 46.5% in April 2012. At a time when the ability of UK governments to implement any long-term project

Despite the doom and gloom of rising interest rates, elevated inflation, the fear of a wide recession and the continued war in Ukraine, global equity markets[1] (developed and emerging markets combined) have actually risen in 2023. In GBP terms, they have delivered of around 7.2% to the end of June, recovering most of 2022’s fall. Markets are forward looking and pretty good at reflecting all information publicly available to investors in current stock prices. As is evident f

State pension increases could be outpacing inflation next April, and there’s no guarantee of the Triple Lock surviving the next election.