Taking some time to start planning for 2021/22 now can be worthwhile. While there is often a focus on planning for the end of the tax year, much less attention is paid to the start of the tax year. The lack of an obvious deadline is probably one reason – deadlines tend to […]
As the pandemic enters its second year, what have we learned? The World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020, coincidentally the day that Chancellor Rishi Sunak presented his first Budget. At the time, the Chancellor announced a £12bn stimulus to counter the impact of the pandemic. By November, the Office of […]
New data show how far UK dividends fell last year, but projections for 2021 suggest the declines are nearly over. In January 2021, Link Asset Services published its latest UK Dividend Monitor covering the final quarter of 2020 and the year as a whole. The headline figure was that total dividends fell by 44% over […]
The world’s share markets had a rollercoaster ride in 2020. Investors had to hold on tight as 2020 turned into a white-knuckle experience. It began quietly enough and then in the second half of February global stock markets took on the concern at the spread of Covid-19. As infection rates increased and the economic […]
2020/21 is drawing to a close, with a Budget now scheduled for early March. Ahead of that, HMRC is easing some of the traditional deadlines in the light of the ongoing pandemic. If you’re struggling to prepare your self-assessment tax return due to the effects of the pandemic, you may get some relief. It has […]
The main state pensions will rise by 2.5% in April. The absence of an autumn Budget in 2020 meant that there was no formal announcement of the level of state pensions from April 2021. The numbers eventually emerged on 8 December in a press release from the Department for Work and Pensions: The new […]
