September news from Christina Clegg pension financial advisor
- 4 million people have withdrawn money from their pensions early since flexibility was introduced in 2015. This doesn’t include money taken from the tax-free pension lump sum. 2.4 million of those people were under retirement age.
- A record 580,000 people paid Capital Gains Tax (CGT) last year after the government reduced the CGT allowance level and increased the tax rate. CGT went up by 90% to £24 billion and the amount of gains reported rose to over £120 billion. Opponents of the tax argue that the result of increased taxes will be less investment. Why take the risk when you’ll be taxed so heavily on your success?
- The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) wants to introduce a system where small pension pots (under £1000 in value) are automatically consolidated into one central pot. This would include autoenrollment pots where no contributions have been made in the last 12 months. Over 13 million pensions could be consolidated under the initiative.
- One million 16- to 24-year-olds are now not in work, education or training. That’s 13% of the total. This will start to impact their pension prospects with immediate effect.
- Find Lost Child Trust Funds – HMRC are encouraging people to use their search tool to identify any lost Child Trust Funds. Currently there are over 750,000 unclaimed Child Trust Funds worth around £2,000 each. Search the government website here.
- Did you know that over one million pensioners now pay the higher 40% rate of tax. That’s twice as many as five years ago and you wonder why people are feeling the pinch – its all the extra tax they are paying!
- On top of that two and a half million people will be paying tax on earnings over £100,000 by 2031. That will take their tax rate to over 60%. This creates an increasing disincentive to earn more.
- This number is up by 70% over the last five years.
- It’s no surprise then to find out that 60% of millionaires in the UK have considered leaving because of the high tax rates. 10% are actively considering leaving and only 30% say that they would never leave the UK. Most were concerned about Inheritance Tax rather than potential wealth taxes.
- Aviva have launched a streamlined advice service via its portal for clients with between £100,000 and £500,000. This is an online service backed up by an adviser over the phone. Most of our clients are in that bracket but continue to enjoy the benefit of regular face to face meetings with Christina and the team.
- Barclays Bank have also announced that have been given permission to provide streamlined advice to customers. So expect a big push from them to sign customers up to their in house products using AI rather than experienced advisors. It seems that we will be travelling back in time to 2010.
- According to Quilter over £300 billion in cash savings are sat in bank accounts that pay no interest. (See above for the role of banks in financial services and how they look after their customers!!)
- Inflation rose to 3.1% in August.
What our customers have said about us
We are delighted to have had our first review on Trustpilot this month. We’ve never been on Trustpilot before and have only just registered our business, so we were delighted to receive our first review from Graham who said….
- My wife and I have been with Christina for seven years. We used the services of Christina to manage our pensions and investments and can say she’s been brilliant. Right from the start, everything was explained clearly and managed very professionally. We would highly recommend Christina for all your financial needs. All her staff are all so friendly and knowledgeable and just lovely with us………….Thank you very much Graham.
Get more information.
If you would like to speak to a pension financial advisor, then why not contact Christina today. We offer a free initial meeting to discuss your requirements and explain how our service works. You are under no obligation to use us after that if you don’t want to and we won’t pester you.
So why not call us today on 01282 614444 or e mail us enquiries@ccfps.co.uk or use our contact form online.
Or if you’d prefer to think about it some more, why not have a look at our Facebook page, our Vouched For page, or our Testimonials page to see what our customers think about us.
