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David Bowern
Partner |
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Wednesday, 02 August 2017 |
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The UK tax
office has reaped the rewards of its latest measures to tackle tax fraud. The past
tax year netted HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) £29 billion from tax evasion
investigations, helping boost its overall revenue by 7%.
HMRC puts part
of this success down to using their "full powers" to uncover secret offshore
accounts. Over £2 billion was collected by "cracking down on people who think
they can hide money offshore" they said, adding, "there are no safe havens".
For
expatriates - who are likely to have financial interests overseas and need cross-border
tax planning - this heightened scrutiny is an extra incentive to get your tax
affairs in order.
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Thursday, 01 June 2017 |
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5th June 2017 is a notable anniversary for the
Bank of England and British savers – it marks 100 months since the Sterling
interest rate was cut to the historic low of 0.5%.
It has also been 10 years now since we saw a UK interest
rate hike. The last time the Bank’s
Monetary Policy Committee raised its rate was in May 2007, up from 5.25% to
5.5%.
Then the financial crisis hit and rates kept falling until
they reached 0.5% in March 2009. They
remained frozen for years until we finally saw a move last summer – downwards. The rate was cut from 0.5% to 0.25% in the
wake of the Brexit referendum, with no change since.
The last time rates were kept low for so long was around the
Second World War. Then the rate was held
at 2% (which actually sounds good today!) from 1939 to 1951.
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Wednesday, 03 May 2017 |
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With Article 50 triggered, Britain is on track to leave the EU in under two
years, on 29th March 2019. The surprise June UK general election is
unlikely to change this, as the two key parties have committed to honour the
referendum result.
While
we still have no certainty about how Brexit will affect expatriates in Spain,
there are steps you can take today to future-proof your financial planning.
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Wednesday, 03 May 2017 |
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6th
April 2017 sees the introduction of an inheritance tax reform that will reduce
the amount of tax paid by most estates. Announced
in the 2015 summer budget, it effectively increases the inheritance tax
threshold to a potential £1 million. This
figure is for a couple, and the increase will happen gradually over four years
and only applies to property - with a number of limitations. So will your estate benefit from a £1 million
nil rate band or not?
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Tuesday, 04 April 2017 |
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In Philip
Hammond’s first and only Spring Budget, there was very little to surprise and
not much that had not already been announced in the 2016 Autumn Statement.
Personal allowances
The personal tax-free
allowance will increase by £500 to £11,500 from April 2017. The threshold for
the higher rate band will also rise to £45,000 (excluding Scotland, where it
remains at £43,000). The budget proposed to increase the personal allowance and
the basic rate band to £12,500 and £50,000 respectively from April 2020.
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Tuesday, 04 April 2017 |
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A new overseas pension transfer tax could
see the UK taxman take a quarter of expatriates’ transferred funds. Those thinking
of moving UK pensions need to know the new rules.
One of the
few surprise announcements in the UK Spring Budget was the ‘Overseas Transfer
Charge’ – an immediate tax on certain transfers to offshore pension schemes. For
some expatriates, this could divert a quarter of their transferred pension
funds to the UK taxman.
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Finance