magazine archive
magazine archive
Money Matters
Surveying the ISA landscape
Thursday 06 Sep 2018Fewer people are using ISA accounts, but those that do are stashing away more cash – that’s the conclusion of the latest annual release of figures on ISA usage from the Government. The figures from the Government show the total number of ISA accounts in the 2017-18 tax year, the amounts of money...
How SIPPs can help reduce your IHT bill
Thursday 06 Sep 2018Historically the role of a pension was to provide an income throughout retirement, usually through the purchase of an annuity from an insurance company (unless you were lucky enough to have a guaranteed defined benefit plan). However, the introduction of the pension freedoms in April 2015 has...
How can I pass on shares to my children?
Thursday 30 Aug 2018Passing on investments to children can be a great way of getting them interested in investing, and helping them to learn about how financial markets work. However, it’s worth noting that shares can be a high-risk investment, as your money is based on one company’s fortunes, rather than spread...
How have Lifetime Isa investors fared in their first year?
Thursday 23 Aug 2018It’s a year since AJ Bell launched its version of the Lifetime ISA, a few months after the newest form of the ISA was launched in April 2017. Since then around 8,000 individuals have signed up to the YouInvest Lifetime ISA, one of the few investment platforms that allows unrestricted investment...
How to avoid becoming the next pension fraud victim
Thursday 23 Aug 2018Fans of Emmerdale might have recently noticed a slightly different advert during the break. Sandwiched between the usual messages about state-of-the art 4x4s and life-changing coffee granules was a minute-long clip from The Pensions Regulator (TPR) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on...
What rising interest rates could mean for your pension
Thursday 16 Aug 2018Mark Carney has finally done it. After months of speculation, the man dubbed an ‘unreliable boyfriend’ by commentators for his habit of leading the market up the garden path finally pulled the trigger and raised the Bank of England base interest rate from 0.5% to 0.75%. The rise – supported by all...
What does the interest rate rise mean for you?
Thursday 09 Aug 2018Interest rates have risen for only the second time in the past decade, and are now the highest they’ve been since 2009 – when rates were slashed after the stock market crash. The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee decided to increase the so-called Bank Rate from 0.5% to 0.75%. The nine-...
Do I need an overseas pension scheme to retire abroad?
Thursday 09 Aug 2018Despite an uncharacteristically warm summer in the UK, many hard-working Brits see spending their later years chasing the sun abroad as the ultimate retirement dream. Unsurprisingly, moving to another country with different tax laws, a different currency and different social security system isn’t...
Track your investment process
Thursday 09 Aug 2018Losing track of your investments is easily done, especially if you have several different pension pots and investment accounts to keep track of. To avoid this any investor should make a list of all of their holdings, the providers they are with and the login and account details for each. But easier...
When you pay tax in your ISA and SIPP
Thursday 02 Aug 2018People putting their money away into an ISA or SIPP can shelter their savings from tax, but you’d be mistaken for thinking that all aspects of these accounts are entirely tax free. Here we explain the situations where you would end up paying tax on this money – from inheritance tax to being...