Over 25 million adults in the UK, including the majority of those in the most vulnerable category, have now had their first injection against Covid-19. With the entire adult population due to have their first jab by July this year, it feels more hopeful than ever that lockdown can lift this summer.
Now pupils are back at school and a testing system for students is in place, it finally feels appropriate to start planning ahead. To help you do that, we take a look back at our year of living through a pandemic and consider ways to prepare for a similar crisis.
The spring Budget is, of course, our main focus for this issue. With so much of the Chancellor’s plans released before the day, many will have thought they knew what was coming. However, the expected changes following recent reports from the Office of Tax Simplification on inheritance tax and capital gains tax were nowhere to be seen. Instead an expected, but no less dramatic, increase in corporation tax was announced (although delayed for two years). For individuals, the Budget heralded freezes on many tax thresholds with implications for wealth erosion over the next five years.
While many may have once dreamed of making millions, that once aspirational figure has lost some of its pomp with the billions borrowed by the government last year and the size of the economy now measured in trillions. Having £1 million saved is not the ticket to a luxury lifestyle it once was. We look at what this sum can buy you in retirement in 2021/22.
Coinciding with Glasgow’s hosting of the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 later this year, new green investment legislation is being introduced for financial advisers. The continued growth in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) sector is good news for investors, who must now be consulted regarding ESG funds when discussing their investment plans.
Our next update will come in the summer, when hopefully businesses that have been forced to remain dormant will be getting back on their feet, and we will be thinking ahead to what happens once government pandemic support schemes come to an end.
Read our Spring 2021 Newsletter here: http://newsletters.taxbriefs.co.uk/IEPSpring2021
