Blog Archives

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SIPPS v ISA: Which Is Best For Saving Tax For Your Retirement Portfolio?

Successfully planning for retirement, should as a matter of course involve limiting your exposure to unnecessary taxes. Doing so should simply be seen as a prudent allocation of your carefully built assets. I would never advocate tax avoidance, and you should never consider it either because it’s a path only fools tread.

That said…

Today we are going to look at the pros and cons of two important types of investments that can help you in retirement, explaining the benefits of both.

Let’s compare SIPPs with ISAs…


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Avoiding Tax On Your Pension Contributions?

Hi everyone,

Today I want to highlight important pension changes, especially if you have been seeking to shield yourself from paying income tax on your annual pension contributions via registered family member schemes.

Recently the Government reduced the annual pension contributions allowance significantly. HMRC cut the allowance down from £255,000 to £50,000 for 2011-2012. From 2014-2015 this will drop even further to £40,000. It does not matter whether the contributions are being made by an individual or employer, these new allowance restrictions apply.

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EMERGENCY BUDGET SUMMARY 2010

financial advice on emergency budget

financial advice on emergency budget

Emergency Budget UK 2010 Financial Advice

The Chancellor introduced the Budget as an emergency Budget intended to deal with the national deficit, seen by the Coalition Government as an unavoidable legacy of the previous government. Although the deficit will be reduced primarily through a reduction in public spending, the increase to the main rate of capital gains tax (CGT) for higher rate income tax payers could have implications for the financial services industry especially when considering the most suitable tax wrapper for their clients.

This article sets out the main changes to tax rates for individuals and trustees. I will be covering pensions and CGT in more details over the next few days.

Hang on to your hats folks because it’s going to be a rough ride!

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Pension Reform And Employer Duties

Pension reform
There will be more pensioners in the future and those pensioners will live longer. This will put a massive strain on the State pension system.

To alleviate this burden, the Pensions Acts 2007 and 2008 make changes to the Basic State Pension, the State Second Pension and introduce new employer duties for pensions. Read more ›


General questions about salary exchange

General questions about salary exchange
With the proposed increase in National Insurance contributions currently causing a political storm I thought it would be a good time to revisit one of my favourite subjects in relation to pensions. That of salary exchange. An already attractive proposition has just become even more so.

These questions and answers cover some of the most common issues on salary exchange. If there’s a question that you have that isn’t covered here, you can check HMRCs Salary Sacrifice Guidance or Salary Sacrifice Q & As Alternatively, you can e-mail me with your question. I’ll do my best to find out the answer and may post it on this website
Read more ›


2009 Tax Budget Essentials PDF

Hi everyone,

just thought I’d let you know I’ve uploaded a 12 Page 2009 Budget PDF for you to download. It gives you a great information on the following in a really easy to read/understand format.

Some highlights include…

  • ISA limits
  • Capital Allowances
  • Business trading losses
  • Tax relief on pension contributions
  • Top rate of income tax details
  • Personal income tax allowance details

    • It also covers…

    • PERSONAL AND TRUST TAXATION
    • CAPITAL TAXES
    • BUSINESS TAX
    • VALUE ADDED TAX (VAT)
    • MISCELLANEOUS ISSUES – including Tax Avoidance
    • NATIONAL INSURANCE CONTRIBUTIONS (NICs)
    • FINANCIAL CALENDAR – to keep you in sync with important fiscal dates

      • There’s a whole lot more in there but it’s all easy to access and understand, so download it to your desktop if want it. Just click the download link below…

      Budget Summary 2009

      I hope it helps clarify your Tax issues in 2009.

      Bye for now…


Investment Notice
The value of an investment can go down as well as up and you may not get back as much as you put in
Financial Advice
MP3 and PDF Financial Guides
William on BBC Radio

Here is an interview William gave on BBC Radio Scotland where he spoke with Fred MacAulay and Karen McKenzie about Cash and Investment ISA's

Listen to the BBC show here
Dates and Times

NOTE: I have been writing articles here since 2007 so please take note the date of the article, because obviously, things like laws or tax allowances etc may have changed since then.

I do try my best to keep up to date, but I'm only an humble advisor and there are hundreds of my financial articles here! Please call or email if you need to double check something. I'll gladly help.

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