Posts by Richard Jackson
Learning lessons from rising inflation and interest rates
As 2021 drew to a close, inflation finally forced the Bank of England’s hand. What will higher rates mean for you? The November inflation figures, released in mid-December, once again exceeded the Bank of England’s (BoE) expectations. At the start of November, the BoE had said that CPI inflation was “expected to peak at around…
Read MoreEngland’s social care cost cap
More details have emerged on the £86,000 social care cost cap for England. At the start of September, the Prime Minister announced long-awaited plans for the funding of social care in England (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all have their own social care funding regimes). Alongside the announcement came the news of a new Health…
Read MoreDemerging China from emerging markets
Some investment professionals are calling for China to be removed from the main emerging markets indices. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is the leading emerging markets (EM) index, with over 1,400 constituents covering 26 countries. The value of investment capital either tracking or benchmarked against it measures in the trillions of dollars, a following that…
Read MoreEscaping the higher minimum pension age
A surprise change of tack on pension ages was revealed when this year’s Finance Bill was published. In February 2021, the government confirmed that it would go ahead with a two-year increase in the normal minimum pension age (NMPA) from 55 to 57 from April 2028. The NMPA is the earliest age at which you…
Read MoreUniversal Credit eligibility expands to higher rate taxpayers
Autumn Budget reforms have created a surprising clash of benefits and income tax. The Covid-19 pandemic was the first time many people utilised Universal Credit (UC) for the first time – between February and May 2020, the number of households claiming UC rose by 1.7 million to 4.2 million. In March 2020, the UC standard…
Read MoreThe global recovery in share dividends
Research shows that in Q3 2021, dividend payments increased sharply in all major markets and are expected to return to pre-pandemic levels before the year’s end. In 2020, global share dividends fell by 11.9% year-on-year in USD terms according to an index calculated by the investment manager Janus Henderson. In the UK, dividends suffered a…
Read MoreTriple Lock shifts to Double Lock in 2022
The temporary Triple Lock suspension and the introduction of a Double Lock has cost pensioners up to £9.35 a week. Call it a good day for burying bad news. Within hours of the Prime Minister announcing his long-awaited plans for social care in England in early September, the Department for Work and Pensions revealed that…
Read MoreCompany cars: heading downhill fast?
Recent data suggests the number of company car drivers continues to fall. Once upon a time, the aspiration of many an office worker was to climb the ladder to the height at which a company car became part of the remuneration package. The appeal of being liberated from the expenses of motoring – sometimes including…
Read MoreThe pension annual allowance trap
Latest HMRC figures show that the annual allowance continues to help fill its depleted coffers. The annual allowance is an important number in the pension world. It sets the maximum tax-efficient amount of total contributions in a tax year – from any source – that can be made to pension schemes for your benefit. If…
Read MorePlacing a cost on retirement
How much income do you need for a comfortable retirement? New research has put a post-pandemic price on the answer. One traditional way to answer the question of how much income you will need in retirement is to fix the amount as a percentage of pay. For example, when final salary pension schemes were more…
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