Debt owed to the government, approximately £22.6 billion, originates from many sources including unpaid fees, taxes, fines and loans, ineligible benefits or grants and unrecovered costs from court cases. (more…)
Chancellor George Osborne is to pay off the UK government’s remaining debt from World War One, the Treasury has announced.
The government will repay the outstanding £1.9bn of debt from a 3.5% War Loan on 9 March 2015. (more…)
Those looking to pass on their pension fund received a boost today when the Government confirmed they’re following through on their promise to scrap the current 55% tax charge on death. This means the tax system will no longer penalise those who draw sensibly on their pension fund, making pensions a very attractive wealth transfer wrapper. (more…)
“Bravo Ireland”
I wasn’t expecting to see this headline quite so soon but nonetheless it’s still a welcome one – ‘Ireland’s borrowing costs fall below the UK’s’. (more…)
2013 came to a close with the US Federal Reserve finally putting investment markets out of their misery.
When Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, started talking about the tapering of quantitative easing (QE) last May, the markets reacted badly. It was not that anyone expected bond buying by the US central bank to carry on buying government and mortgage-backed bonds at the rate of $85bn a month for ever, it was just that there were serious doubts about what an end to QE would bring. May’s speech suggested the taper would start in September, but it was put on hold, allegedly because of concerns about the budgetary battles on Capitol Hill. That was another surprise, but not an unsettling one. (more…)
Six million children with savings in Child Trust Funds (CTFs) will be able to convert them to Junior ISAs, the government has announced. (more…)
