More evidence that taking investment advice from social media is a bad move.
The TSB found that over 50% of people who had acted on an investment offer seen on social media had lost money. The average was £690. In the case of crypto currency, this confirms the ongoing advice from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) that anyone investing in crypto should be able to afford to lose all of their investment. That’s not saying that they will, but that there is a high risk that will be the case.
Sadly, over 30% of people said that they had been taken in by investment adverts on social media. That’s a very high figure.
Over 50% of people also said that they couldn’t tell if an advert was AI generated or not.
Advisers are calling on the FCA and ASA to step up their efforts to crack down on unregulated advice on social media including fin influencers. The best advice really is not to deal with anyone advertising on social media platforms. The risk of it being a scam is just too high. With us you will physically come into our office and speak to us face to face.
Unfortunately, this is a generational issue. According to Aegon over half of 18 to 29 years olds are comfortable taking advice from AI, including 25% who would take financial advice from AI. Compared to less than 5% of over 50’s. The FCA however, reports that almost half of under 30’s believe that financial information generated by AI bots is regulated and offers some form of protection. It does not and is not regulated.
Credit Card company Zable has found that 80% of its customers are happy to take advice from unregulated sources. That included AI and social media. With 70& not bothering to check whether the sources were genuine or regulated.
29% of the same customers said they had lost money as a result of bad advice.
Investment advice from big firms.
Of course, another option is to call into your Bank to see an adviser. Most Banks are now back in the advice business after a 10-year absence. Nat West for example are looking to attract 50,000 new advice customers this year. But, you will need to have over £100,000 in savings to invest.
In fact, almost 90% of investment advice clients deal with one of the top 10 advice in the UK.
New tax rules create negative growth
According to Citywire the governments new Making Tax Digital system is having a negative effect on business. Under the new system self-employed workers now have to report their income quarterly if they earn over £50,000 and pay tax quarterly. The system adds a raft of new paperwork for workers. This is potentially encouraging them to turn work down in order to keep below the threshold. There are also suggestions that cash in hand might be coming back into favour, which won’t help HMRC. Others are deciding to become limited companies to avoid having to pay tax quarterly.
It always seems to be the same. The government has an idea. In this case to supposedly make the tax reporting system easier for the self-employed. Then the opposite happens. Everything becomes much harder and in the end the government gets less tax.
Crypto tax likely to rise
On the subject of tax in the UK. HMRC will start to receive automatic updates from overseas crypto exchanges in over 50 countries from March next year. This will provide them with trading data on crypto gains which will be taxed as capital gains. This year HMRC sent out 80,000 crypto tax letters. Expect that number to rise significantly next year.
That will help the government to raise more taxes which are already £4 billion up on last year.
This year 240 people admitted to earning over £700 million between them in crypto gains. In Total 17,600 people reported taxable again of almost £80,000 each on average.
Get more information.
If you would like investment advice, 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.
