A recently released report shows dividend payments in the UK grew more than 10% in 2017. The report included good news for investors, as UK listed companies paid out £94.4 billion of dividends in 2017. This was up 10.5% on the previous year and a new record. However, the headline figures do not tell the […]
February saw a dramatic return of volatility to global stock markets. On Friday 2 February, after most of the world’s share markets had finished for the week, the Dow Jones Index dropped by 666 points in a day. Never mind all the beastly connotations of that number, in fact it was a drop of […]
Whilst you might not think of yourself as an employer, under the government’s auto-enrolment pension legislation, the Pensions Regulator may think differently. If you employ a nanny, a cleaner, or a personal care assistant, then you could be classified as an employer and need to set up a workplace pension. If you pay staff directly, […]
The start of the new tax year on 6 April marks several changes to tax and related matters that could make you richer… or poorer. The absence of a Spring Budget does not mean that the usual raft of changes at the start of the new tax year have disappeared. Most of the important changes […]
You may be due a refund if you have registered a power of attorney in recent years. It is not often the government offers a refund because of overcharging, but last month it emerged that the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) had been levying excessive fees for four years. The fees related to the […]
The rules for inheriting ISAs will change from 6 April. It was announced by George Osborne in 2014 that ISAs would become inheritable by surviving spouses and civil partners. At the time, nobody – not even the Treasury – was clear what the then chancellor meant. The plans for ISA ’inheritance’, when they eventually emerged, […]
