Changing of the Guard

Happy New Tax Year!

Over the weekend the new tax year entered along with “Storm Kathleen”. Is it me, or does the media generated as each named storm arrives allow for ever more drama? Storms get scarier sounding now they have names. Apparently it was the 11th storm of this season; apart from the odd tree giving up and falling over there was nothing to see really in the NW for this or the preceding 10. Sure planes were diverted, and yes that’s always been the case. Nobody knows whether it would have stopped the trains from running – because most weren’t running again anyway. So all in all, most UK citizens won’t remember this one like the previous 10 they have already forgotten. However we have some scary historic storm numbers building, to help prove weather events are more extreme today than they have ever been. I will refrain from commenting on climate change in this blog as I wanted to publish a very short one this time. In Bolton, even a storm with a name on it means it’s just been a case of bring the sheets in off the line and if you going out put your big coat on.

Agnes, Babet, Kieran,Debi, Elin, Fergus, Gerrit, Henk, Isha & Jocelyn. No Howard once again! And why no Grace and Rose and Daisy? – not scary sounding at all, Storm Grace.

Spring Cleaning Jobs

Once we get into the new tax year we embark on the project to get as much of our clients savings as possible into a tax free wrapper. ISAs as everybody knows are a no brainer. Why pay tax on your savings when you don’t have to?

For the 24/25 tax years there has been some tinkering done with the ISA rules. And just like the major storm we have all just witnessed, there was little to see really. The important rule for us is that individuals can now fill their £20,000 allowance with more than one provider. It now doesn’t matter if you save £50 into a bank ISA, we can still invest the balance of your allowance for you. As I write, Melissa is running our annual bed to ISA exercise to save client’s tax. If you have managed to already use your ISA allowance this weekend, please get in touch straight away.

I believe it is especially important to use ISA allowances as early as we can this tax year. With the nailed-on change of Government due to occur before the next tax year, it cannot be taken for granted that ISAs will remain in their current guise. There is already talk about maximums being capped and new savings tax concessions withdrawn.

The current highwayman, sorry Chancellor of the Exchequer, halved the capital gains tax allowance from £6,000 to £3,000 over the weekend, (it was a full £12300 until a couple of years ago) more reason to get your savings as tax free as possible as early as possible.

Which Portfolio?

For this exercise we will be investing only in the portfolio of your current ISA. The cash will be transferred and there will be an early rebalance of the accounts affected. If you would like to divert the additional contribution to a different one of our portfolios, then get in touch. Also get in touch if you have £20,000 spare in your piggy bank.

Financial Advice

• Of course nothing said above should be construed as personal financial advice. If someone is happy to pay more tax than they need to, it is completely up to them. I say this only as non-clients can also read my blogs and this blog is not an invitation to invest with us.
• As always, past performance isn’t necessarily a guide to the future.
• The equities held in a General Account will fall as well as rise exactly as the equities held in an ISA account. The difference is purely better tax treatment in an ISA.

There, that’s all the risk warnings out of the way. Once the ISA project has finished we will move on to our pension project which again could prove to be important as the changes arrive later this year in the Palace of Westminster.