One of the best things you can do is contact EBS for a financial spring clean - we do all of the hard work leaving you to sit back and benefit from the long-term results.

A sample of the things we can do to help includes:

Pensions

• Do you understand what benefits you have, where they are, what you are investing in and, most importantly, what you are likely to get back and when?
• Do you know whether you are affected by any of the restrictions imposed during last year’s Budget and pre-Budget Report? Are you clear what this means and what your options are?

Taxation & Investments

• Do you have total taxable income of £100,000 or more? If so we may be able to restore some of the income tax personal allowance which you are set to lose from 6th April 2010.
• Have you taken advantage of the tax-free ISA savings allowance for 2010? Remember, this allowance actually increases on 6th April 2010.

Mortgages & Family Protection

• Do you have a valid will in place? Does it still reflect your current wishes?
• Would you benefit from understanding a little more about how your estate could be impacted by Inheritance Tax or the need for someone in your family to require residential nursing care?
• Are your life assurance and pension benefits written under trust (or appropriate nomination) to ensure that in the event of your death benefits are paid to your chosen beneficiaries in the most tax-efficient manner possible?
• Is your mortgage due for review in 2010? Find out what planning you need to undertake now to ensure you can access the best available deals.

These are just a few of the money-saving suggestions we can implement for you - an initial consultation is available at our expense and is free from obligation.

We also don’t make you run on a treadmill….

We have a number of downloadable PDF files with more information which you can get by clicking on the below links:

For further information please contact EBS.

As we have reported previously on this site, anyone with total earnings (including rental & investment income) will see their income tax personal allowance reduced by £1 for every £2 earned over the threshold, meaning that it will disappear once earnings reach £112,950. This creates a marginal rate of tax on the band of income £100,0000 - 112,950 of 60% resulting in an additional income tax bill of  £2,590 where the entire allowance is removed.

The good news is that there are prudent financial planning decisions which can be taken to reclaim this valuable allowance. If you or your organisation would like to learn more, please get in touch.

Whilst we’re dishing out the good news, please don’t forget that for anyone with earnings of £130,000 or more (including in any one of the previous 3 tax years - this figure includes the taxable element of redundancy payments) there could be restrictions placed on the amount of money which can be invested by them or their employer into pension arrangements from 6th April 2010 (for anyone earning £150,000 plus) or 9th December 2010 (£130,000 plus) without creating an income tax-charge. Again, for full details please speak to EBS.

For a copy of the full report visit: http://www.opalliance.org.uk/docs/2009survey.pdf

Speaking at the NAPF Conference, he said: ”Trustees should start from the presumption that such exercises and transfers are not in member’s interests. If a company is willing to encourage the transfer, the company’s gain is likely to be the member’s loss.”

EBS has a specialist adviser, Steve Randall, qualified to provide advice on the suitability of any occupational pension scheme transfers. David Norgrove’s speech does not refer to transfers of stakeholder or personal pensions.  

For a full copy of the speech visit: href=”http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/mediaCentre/pressReleases/pn09-20.aspx”>http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/mediaCentre/pressReleases/pn09-20.aspx

Commentators are already suggesting that whilst auto-enrolment of all employees into a pension scheme will still happen from 2012, it would be more cost-effective for the Government to achieve this utilising either State pensions (which the Government is not too keen on) or the private sector, via group stakeholder or personal pension arrangements.

For details of the latest proposals and how they will affect you, click here for our single page summary.

At launch the Government stressed that this project would not become “another Terminal 5″ but following September’s announcement of significant extensions to the originally proposed launch timetable, yesterday’s news extended what was an 18 month implementation period into a four year project.

Reaction to this announcement has been mixed - it does reduce employer costs to a degree which is always welcome, political commentary suggests that the real driver is the estimated £2.4bn it will save the Government in tax-relief and amounts to yet another delay in securing pension funding for millions of workers without pension plans.

An up to date EBS summary of the latest proposals can be found here. What does remain constant is that all employer pension arrangements must offer auto-enrolment of employees by 2012. Speak to EBS to learn more about how these proposals will affect you or your business.

In the actual Budget, it was announced that individuals earning over £150,000 would be liable to pay income tax at 50% and pension tax relief would be tapered to 20% for those earning £180,000 or more. Anti-forestalling legislation was introduced to prevent higher earners making pension contributions ahead of the 2011 implementation date. (See our Budget Bulletin for further details).

The Treasury originally said that existing salary sacrifice arrangements and large employer pension contributions would not be taken into account when determining total income for these purposes. It did warn that individuals or companies seeking to implement such arrangements post-Budget would face penalties.

However, the Government has today backtracked announcing that, from today, anyone earning £130,000 will also have their employer pension contribution included in the calculation to determine total income for determining pension tax relief. This measure is expected to bring a further 150,000 higher earners into the restricted regime.

The Pre-Budget Reports states: ” The restriction of pensions tax relief from April 2011 will apply to those with gross incomes of £150,000 and over, where gross income incorporates all pension contributions, including those funded by an employer.”

“This will be subject to an income floor, so that individuals with pre-tax incomes (excluding employer pension contributions) of less than £130,000 will be unaffected.”

Early analysis suggests that high earners in defined benefit (‘final salary’) arrangements are most likely to be affected as employer pension contributions can be significant.

EBS is currently preparing a guide to all of these changes, including a series of case studies and this will be available  in January. If you would like advice on any aspect of personal taxation or pensions please get in touch. An initial consultation is available at our expense and is free from obligation.

A complete analysis of the Pre-Budget Report will appear on this site shortly.

A summary of the key points is provided below:

• Inheritance Tax threshold frozen at £325,000 (£650,000 per couple)
• Basic state pension to rise by 2.5% in 2010
• NI to increase by 0.5% for salaries of £20,000 or more from 2011
• Small companies’ 1% increase in Corporation Tax postponed
• Introduction of a 50% employer tax on bankers’ bonuses of £25,000 and above.

This final item caused the most hilarity at EBS - not because of any dislike of bankers - simply because I communicated this as a tax on ‘bakers bonuses’ - the jokes have been awful - from ‘making too much dough’ to ‘wanting to have their cake & eat it’. At least it’s reassuring to know that these things are read…

• A windfall tax on “extraordinarily high” bankers’ bonuses
• A limitation of loss relief for banks
• An extension of next year´s 50% income tax “additional rate” to all those earning over £100,000
• The removal of higher rate tax relief on pension contributions for all
• Further increases to National Insurance
• A removal of tax free income and gains for registered pension schemes ie the taxation of pension fund gains and income
• A “mansion tax” – a kind of wealth tax for £2m plus property
• A freezing of the IHT nil rate band
• An increase in the IHT rate to 50%
• An increase in the CGT rate from 18% to 25%
• An alignment of the CGT rate with income tax

EBS will publish a summary of the actual PBS content tomorrow, if you have any questions, please get in touch.