With some children getting preferential access to bank of mum and/or dad into adulthood, advisers can play a part in helping parents, and even grandparents, make provision for this financially. With some careful planning around Child Trust Funds and Junior ISAs, clients would be barking mad to miss out on this government generosity… Way back …

With the government’s independent advisers pitching to move the end of the tax year, Neil MacGillivray, Head of Technical Support at James Hay, considers how we wound up with the current tax year end date and challenges the new proposal. The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) has announced that it’s considering the possibility of moving …

Each benefit crystallisation event (BCE) normally uses up a portion of an individual’s lifetime allowance (LTA). Where individuals with uncrystallised rights held under multiple registered pension schemes don’t have enough LTA to cover these rights, they may find themselves faced with a choice as to the order in which the benefits are taken. The question …

The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) issued a second report on the 20 May 2021, titled ‘Capital Gains Tax Review; Simplifying practical, technical and administration issues’, in which they take the view that the current treatment of capital gains on separation and divorce is totally unsatisfactory and needs to change. In his blog, Neil MacGillivray, …

The Treasury consultation on the implementation of the increase in the normal minimum pension age (NMPA) closed for comments on 22 April. We now wait, with somewhat bated breath, to learn what form the legislation will take in respect of the increase from 55 to 57 as of 6 April 2028. Rumblings have surfaced about …

Most will be familiar with the tax planning opportunity that arises when one spouse or civil partner dies, and the surviving partner (the survivor) can make an additional permitted individual savings account (ISA) subscription. That said, it’s clear from many of the enquiries I receive, particularly where there has been significant stock market movement up …

In a previous article I looked at the situation where individuals exceed their lifetime allowance (LTA) during their lifetime, and how the resultant LTA charge is calculated and accounted for. However, if a LTA charge is generated on the death of an individual, it’s dealt with in a different way. A test against an individual’s …

The 2020 Financial Lives Survey indicated that 46% of UK adults could be considered vulnerable, and even more so since the pandemic took hold in March last year. Vulnerability is consequently a key area of focus for the FCA and they’re understandably insistent that advisers treat their clients right. So is your business prepared? In …

From the outset SIPPs were considered as a means of making it easier for people to manage their own pension arrangements. But their true potential in wealth management arguably took a further 26 years to develop, through the introduction of pension freedoms in 2015. Many feared that it would quickly go downhill from there, with …

Every individual has a lifetime allowance (LTA) which sets the total capital value of pension savings that they can draw as tax privileged benefits. There’s no limit to the amount of pension savings an individual can have. However, tax privileges are recouped through the LTA charge where the LTA is exceeded. In this technical article …