DWM Financial Planning

How to stay in your home for as long as possible if you need long-term care.

You may assume that if you needed some form of long-term care, you would have to move into a care home or nursing home. But that may not be the case: receiving care in your own home can be enough to help solve the problems you’re dealing with.

How to stay in your home for as long as possible if you need long-term care You may assume that if you needed some form of long-term care, you would have to move into a care home or nursing home. But that may not be the case: receiving care in your own home can be enough to help solve the problems you’re dealing with.

Success comes with its own challenges. It can take many years of struggling to grow your business to the point when you can sell it for what you had hoped.

Yet getting it to that point is only part of the challenge. The next step is making sure you and your family can enjoy the benefits for many decades to come.

But how?

So, I’ve sold my business: what do I do with the money? Building up a business generally requires very different skills to selling it, and success with the former may well provide only limited help with the latter. Before you even sell your business, you need to be sure that you’ve done all the necessary tax planning. Otherwise you could lose out unnec...

In the current environment, making the best use of tax-efficient wrappers such as pensions and ISAs is all the more important.

So it’s all the more important to make the best use of tax-efficient wrappers such as pensions and ISAs to make your money work harder. But is one better than the other?

It’s not an either-or situation. Both pensions and ISAs are tax-efficient ways to save, but there are some key differences. Which one is right for you will depend on your individual circumstances, including where you are on your investment journey and your goals for the future. It may well end up that you use both to create the optimum mix.

Using pensions and ISAs together can help you save for the future as well as reduce your tax liability, contributing to overall financial wellness, this article will help you decide what's right for you.......

Finding the right balance between tax-efficient pensions and ISAs In his first Autumn Statement, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced reductions to a number of key tax allowances as part of his attempts to help the nation’s finances recover from a difficult few years.

Here are some of the highlights from the Budget announcement:

* Changes to the annual limits on tax relieved pensions savings, giving greater scope for many to save
* Removal of Lifetime Allowance charges next tax year before the abolition of the Lifetime Allowance from April 2024
* The gradual extension of free childcare of up to 30 hours per week for children up to age 3 starting in April 2024 and fully implemented by September 2025
* Various employment incentives, including for the disabled and over 50s
* The ISA investment limit and the 0% starting rate band for savings income to remain at their current levels of £20,000 and £5,000 respectively
* New and continuing incentives for businesses investing in qualifying capital equipment and including most office machinery and I.T equipment allowing 100% of the expenditure to be fully deductible for tax purposes. The scheduled increases to corporation tax from 1st April 2023 will however proceed
* 12 new investment zones to be designated subject to successful application. These would qualify for a range of incentives, support and tax reliefs
* An extension of the energy support guarantee at the current level of £2,500 for an average household for a further three months until July 2023

So, what does all of that mean for financial planning strategy? Especially given that there were no material changes announced in relation to the main personal taxes, namely income tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax.

This post considers four key areas of financial planning:

Pensions - Savings & Investments - Intergenerational - Business Owners

SJP 2023 Budget Analysis: A Budget for Growth View our electronic Budget Report for further analysis on the changes, key facts and figures, and useful financial planning tips.

Capital Gains Tax (CGT) can trip many of us up. It’s a tax on the profit, or ‘gain’ that you make when you sell or even gift an asset that’s increased in value.

It’s a complicated area of tax-planning. Some people pay who could have mitigated some or all of the tax, while others forget to declare their gains, and may even face fines.

Which is why it’s wise to get your head around CGT and take financial advice, so you don’t end up paying more than you need to.

These are some of the most common questions we’re asked about CGT, plus some practical tips on how it works, and how to pay the right amount at the right time

Getting on top of Capital Gains Tax Capital Gains Tax (CGT) can trip many of us up. It’s a tax on the profit, or ‘gain’ that you make when you sell or even gift an asset that’s increased in value.

Why the 60% tax trap happens.......

If you earn £100,000 or more, the £12,570 personal allowance is slowly reduced. The personal allowance is the amount of income you can earn each year without paying Income Tax. It’s currently tapered away at a rate of £1 for every £2 you earn above £100,000.

In hard terms, this means that for every £100 of income between £100,000 and £125,140, you only get to take £40 home – £40 is deducted in Income Tax, while another £20 is lost by the tapering of the personal allowance. This amounts to a 60% tax rate. Once you’re earning £125,140 or more, you don’t get any personal allowance at all.

Beating the 60% tax trap Ever heard of anyone paying 60% tax? Chances are not, since, according to HMRC, Income Tax is charged at 0%, 20%, 40% or 45%, depending on how much you earn. The rates are slightly different in Scotland, but a 60% rate of tax doesn’t seem to exist. However, higher-rate taxpayers beware.

Do you use your tax allowances and reliefs each year to boost your pension pot ?

Some days you can’t imagine ever retiring. Other days, it can’t come soon enough. But there will be a day when you want to put work behind you, and live life differently. And a rewarding, comfortable retirement is something that takes careful financial planning.

These days, retirement planning is about making sure you’ve got plenty of options to live later-life the way you want to, not the way your retirement income means you have to.

That’s why it really pays to use your tax allowances and reliefs each year to boost your pension pot, as you get closer to that retirement party.

Boost your pension pot before tax-year end Some days you can’t imagine ever retiring. Other days, it can’t come soon enough. But there will be a day when you want to put work behind you, and live life differently. And a rewarding, comfortable retirement is something that takes careful financial planning.

Many of us will have a money-related goal among our New Year’s Resolutions. It’s a perfect time of year to break old money habits and make some new ones. “Getting into good tax and financial habits help make your life so much easier,” says Tony Clark, Senior Propositions Manager at St. James's Place. “The key is to form new habits that make your good intentions stick, so they become second nature, and you don’t even realise you’re doing them.”

Good money management habits make us feel more confident and in control of our finances, as well as keeping us on track to achieve our long-term goals They’re at the heart of personal financial wellbeing.

These are our top five tax-smart habits to get into before the end of the tax year......

Make 2023 less stressful: how to get into better money habits now Getting into good tax habits means you have more confidence and control over your money, and your financial wellbeing.

At the end of every tax year, there’s a flurry of activity as people scramble to make the most of their tax reliefs and allowances. But you shouldn’t just have your eye on 5 April when you’re thinking about tax – it should be woven through the fabric of your entire financial plan, at every stage of your life.

We call this taking a holistic view of your finances. It means looking at the big picture, both your current financial circumstances and what you want your future to look like. As well as incorporating any variables that are unique to you, your financial plan will, to some extent, take into account what’s happening in financial markets and the wider world.

How important is tax in financial planning? At the end of every tax year, there’s a flurry of activity as people scramble to make the most of their tax reliefs and allowances. But you shouldn’t just have your eye on 5 April when you’re thinking about tax – it should be woven through the fabric of your entire financial plan, at every s...

The language used in financial communications can be complicated – and promote biases and stereotypes.
This can lead to people feeling confused and overwhelmed and lacking confidence in this area.
We regularly review the language we use – both in person and in our communications – to ensure you feel knowledgeable and happy with your financial choices.

How your financial literacy impacts on your financial confidence Yet financial products and services are often made unnecessarily complex by the language the industry uses to communicate with its customers.