As the 31st March looms large, we thought it might be helpful if we sent this brief email as a reminder of the various annual allowances which, if not used by the end of the tax year, will be lost for ever.
Individual Savings Account (ISA)
We all have an annual allowance of £20,000 that can be used to invest into either a stocks & shares ISA or deposited into a savings ISA. The good news is that you will have a new allowance from the 6th April
- A point to remember if you are thinking of reviewing your existing ISA with a view to moving into another ISA in search of a better return, then advice should be sought re transferring your account.
Pension Planning
Since the new flexible pension rules were introduced in 2015, there has never been a better time to consider contributing into a pension plan for the additional planning benefits that they now provide.
Currently for most employees/self-employed we are all entitled to contribute up to a 100% of our ‘earned income’ up to a maximum of £40,000 including tax relief in the current tax year. If you are eligible to contribute more, did you know that you can ‘Carry Forward’ any unused relief from the previous three years (2013/14), if you contribute the maximum annual allowance in the current tax year. So, if you think this might be of interest to you, then you need to act fast, as after the 6th April you will have lost any unused allowance from tax year 2013/14.
- Contributing into pensions is an excellent way of reducing your income tax or for business owners to reduce the amount of corporation tax that they will otherwise pay. Also, with new pension rules, its an excellent estate planning vehicle if the correct advice is sought.
Reclaiming income tax from the previous tax year or this year, interested?
There are various investment types that we at Chase Financial Management are qualified to advise upon that can assist to either mitigate or reclaim either Income & Capital Gains Tax and /or Inheritance Tax. Please contact us for more details.
As the Government’s inheritance tax take heads towards £6bn!
There are many free allowances that you can use to help mitigate this, in most cases, unnecessary tax, such as the £3,000 annual allowance and the individual £250 gift allowances. Then, we all have an individual IHT allowance of £325,000 known as the Nil Rate Band (NRB), which dependent upon your financial worth, you could look to make a gift in excess of your personal allowances up to the NRB, then as long as you survive 7 years the gift would fall out of your estate and your estate would benefit from a new NRB allowance. Then there is gifting from ‘surplus income’. If you’d like to discuss your own family’s position, then please do not hesitate to contact us.
Thinking of selling investment assets?
Have you have disposed of or are you thinking of disposing of shares or an investment property? We all have a Capital Gains Tax allowance which in the current tax-year is £11,300, which will be increased to £11,700 (2018/19), which if not used before the end of the tax year will be lost. Its always a good idea to take professional advice before making a disposal just to check your tax liability and to understand whether there is some planning that could be undertaken before such a sale e.g. splitting the ownership between spouses I order to spread the gain across two allowances.
The content of this document should not be deemed to constitute the provision of financial, investment or other profession advice in any way.
The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up and investors may not recover the amount of their original investment. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
Fairstone Financial Management Limited does not offer tax advice; the tax treatment of investments depends on each investor’s individual circumstances and is subject to changes in tax legislation.
For further information or advice, then please feel free to contact Mark Dickens or Andrew Wilkinson at Chase on 01452 560470 or email mark@chasefm.biz or andy@chasefm.biz
Chase Financial Management is a trading name of Fairstone Financial Management Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under FRN 475973.
Head Office: 1 The Bulrushes, Boldon Business Park, Tyne & Wear. NE35 9PF. Registered in England and Wales No. 5869447.