Evaluating Gold as an Investment At first glance, the proposition of investing in an asset exhibiting limited practical utility, generating no direct income, and incurring ownership costs such as insurance and storage, might appear counterintuitive. Such criticisms...
Inflation & Rising Rates Expose HMRC's Capacity Issues Over the past several years, a consistent strategy employed by successive governments to boost tax revenue has been the freezing of tax allowances and bands. This approach, coupled with rising inflation that...
Understanding State Pension Age Changes in the UK Recent research highlights a significant lack of public awareness regarding forthcoming alterations to the State Pension Age (SPA) in the UK. This issue is particularly pertinent given the historical context of SPA...
2025 introduces a technical change to company car tax, which could alter your next choice of car. In recent years, the tax rules for company cars have provided a major incentive to choose a battery electric vehicle (BEV), with zero CO2 emissions, or a plug-in hybrid...
The government is showing no signs of changing its plans to levy inheritance tax (IHT) on pensions. Sometimes what creates the most noise in the wake of a Budget is not what will hurt the taxpaying population most in the future. A perfect example from last October’s...
The House of Commons Treasury Committee has been pondering the future of Lifetime ISAs (LISAs). The Lifetime ISA (LISA) is arguably a good example of brand overstretch. When ISAs were first launched in 1999, there were only two varieties, and they replaced two...
The Office for National Statistics has taken a fresh look at our mortality. Source: ONS Roughly every two years, stories in the media tell us how many children will live to the age of 100. The latest projections are that 11.5% of boys and 17.9% of girls born in 2023...
What the Chancellor’s Spring Statement Means for Your Future Finances There were no tax increases in the Chancellor’s Spring Statement (upgraded from an initial Spring Forecast), but that might just be pain deferred. Before becoming Chancellor, Rachel Reeves set out a...
UK Inflation Numbers Higher Than Expected 2025’s first set of UK inflation numbers were higher than expected, but more rises are coming. The UK has experienced an inflation rollercoaster since the start of this decade, as have many Western economies. In January 2020,...
Global Government Efficiency Scrutiny Despite referring to taxpayers as 'customers,' the question of HMRC efficiency and cost-effectiveness remains. In the United States, there has been considerable media attention on DOGE, the so-called Department of Government...
Automatic Pension Enrolment Thresholds remain unchanged. The government has confirmed that there will be no revisions to automatic enrolment in workplace pensions for 2025/26. For a government facing an investment shortfall following a £40 billion tax increase, the...
Proactive Tax Year Preparation Planning for the beginning of the new tax year is as important as the planning done for the end of the old one. While the 5th of April, the tax year's conclusion, is a major focal point, the following day, while appearing to need less...
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