Tax and Financial Planning

  • Unlocking Your Equity - the Choices

    There is a bewildering variety of equity release schemes on the market and, judging by the letters pages of the financial press, they are not well understood. Releasing equity in a house can be an effective way of supplementing your income or releasing...

  • What is Phased Retirement?

    Phased retirement is the term given to the process by which retirement pensions are split into segments, which are then treated separately. It makes use of the rule in the UK that allows a retirement policyholder to take each pension policy at a time of...

  • Putting Cash into a Family Business

    When younger members of a family start a business, they often ask other family members to provide part of the necessary capital. If you are approached to do this and are willing to provide funding, it is often difficult to know how best to provide...

  • How Drawdown Lifetime Mortgages Work

    For people who have money tied up in their homes who wish to release capital for expenditure, or possibly to give to family members, the drawdown lifetime mortgage (DLM) is a possible vehicle. ...

  • The Enterprise Investment Scheme

    Successive governments have recognised that the spirit of entrepreneurialism, though deeply ingrained in the UK’s culture, is not really very well supported by the financial institutions. In an...

  • How Inheritance Tax Works

    Inheritance Tax (IHT) is paid on your estate when you die and also when money is transferred into some trust funds. Some other transfers during one’s lifetime may also be subject to IHT. The first £312,000 (at 2008/9 rates) of the estate is...

  • IHT Planning and the AIM

    In recent years, Inheritance Tax (IHT) has affected more and more families, largely due to rising house prices. IHT is payable at 40 per cent on the net assets of an estate where these exceed £300,000 – the current nil-rate band. Investing in...

  • Equity Release

    Managing an active retirement can present significant problems for the many people who are blessed with good health but cursed by the effects of the poor performance of pension funds and low annuity rates over the last two decades. This combination of factors...