Our vulnerabilities have been laid bare over the last year, as the pandemic took hold of all our lives, and continues to present challenges on a variety of levels. Economic frailties have been exposed but, as we enter 2021, hope hangs in the air with the prospect of recovery in the New Year and beyond. […]

The arrival of the new tax year on 6 April means it is time to consider your Individual Savings Accounts (ISA) investments, which will celebrate their 20th birthday in April. Over the last 20 years, the maximum annual contribution has risen from £7,000 per tax year to £20,000 for 2019/20. If you managed to set […]

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is aiming to expand pension coverage among the self-employed.  Pension automatic enrolment has become a major success since it was launched nearly seven years ago, with almost 10 million people joining a workplace pension arrangement. Take-up rates have been much higher than some pundits had forecast – the […]

The State Pension Age (SPA) became equal for men and women for the first time, at age 65, on 6 November 2018. Having reached this landmark, the next stage of SPA increases has already started. For both men and women, the state pension will become payable for anyone born between 6 December 1953 and 5 […]

A 2.6% rise in the single-tier state pension was announced in the 2018 Budget. The increase to the single-tier state pension and its predecessor the basic state pension will apply from next April. Other state pensions, such as the State Earnings Related Pensions Scheme (SERPS), will rise by 2.4%. The higher increases for the two […]

Imagine you are named as the executor and a beneficiary of your wife’s wealthy aunt. You learn that she is suffering from terminal cancer and has ‘a very impaired lifespan’. What do you do? This is what happened in the case of Nader and others v Revenue & Customs. The executor/beneficiary, a Dr Nader, decided […]