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Capital gains tax changes in the 2020/2021 tax year

New rules from HMRC will mean that buy-to-let landlords and second homeowners will have to make capital gains tax payments sooner than they might have expected, says the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT). If you are planning to sell a property that you have let or a second home, it would normally need to be reported to HMRC using a self-assessment tax return or using the online “real time” tool for reporting. This means that the tax due needs to be paid by January 31 of the following tax year, which gives sellers between 10 and 22 months after the sale of their property before they need to pay. What’s changing? HMRC has concerns about how long it could take before capital gains tax is paid, so they have decided to change the rules from April 2020. From the 2020/21 tax year, individuals and trustees disposing of a residential property will be required to make a payment on account, much like the rule for self-assessment income tax. This payment will need to be made within 30 d

Main Exemptions & Reliefs Available on Death

Nil rate band Under current rules, any part of the estate that falls within the available nil rate band (NRB), currently £325,000 until at least 5 April 2021, is taxed at zero. Anything in excess of this amount is taxed at 40%. On death any part of the estate that passes to the surviving spouse* is an exempt transfer and will not use the NRB. Also, since the 9 October 2007 any unused NRB can be transferred to a surviving spouse. For example, if a husband dies and leaves his estate to his widow, she can take his unused NRB and add it to her own. This means that when she dies, her estate will only incur IHT if it’s worth more than £650,000 currently. [* Note: Within the article spouse also means civil partner.] The unused NRB available to transfer to a spouse is expressed as a percentage rather than a monetary amount and so increases with any future increases to the NRB. Therefore if an individual does not use any of their NRB, their spouse can claim 100%. If the NRB on the death of

Welcome Carrie-Anne Marshall

I am pleased to say we have a new employee in Carrie-Anne Marshall who will be based at our new Fakenham Office and joins us as a Financial Administrator. Carrie joins us from the recently relocated CITB (Construction Industry Training Board) and has worked in hospitality and customer services over the last 13 years, gaining NVQs and Diplomas in these areas. For further information on Carrie, and our other staff, please visit our website at www.allentomasfinancial.co.uk

Five Year Anniversary Celebrations

Allen Tomas & Co started in 2013, however we incorporated December 2014 so on the 29th November 2019 we celebrated 5 years of incorporation at the Dersingham Village Centre. This venue has recently undergone a fantastic state of the art build and renovation and only recently received a visit from Her Majesty the Queen. Special thanks to all our speakers which included David Collingham, Chairman of the Dersingham Village Centre, Bob Woods MBE, Founder and Senior Adviser of Mattioli Woods Plc and Colonel Rich Cantrill OBE MC, of the Royal Marines and the Ministry of Defence. Their support and empathy was overwhelming and their speeches were very well received by the audience. We would also like to thank the fabulous Florentina Catering for the food and Kayleigh from The Artisan Branding Co for the photography.

Pension Legislation and Brexit

One of the key Brexit casualties is the Pensions Bill, the Department for Work and Pensions was hoping to introduce this year. The Pensions Bill was meant to introduce a number of changes, however they can still push ahead with many of their regulatory changes despite Brexit: November 2019 sees the introduction of new ‘wake-up’ packs. From then providers will send a one-page summary together with a page of retirement risk warnings to clients at age 50, with more detailed packs, alongside the one-pager, following every five years thereafter until the pension pot is fully crystallised. The thorny subject of defined benefit transfers continues to attract attention from regulators and politicians. A joint FCA/TPR template to encourage schemes to provide transfer information on a consistent basis is due imminently. While this is helpful, it won’t be compulsory so it is likely good schemes will adopt it while laggards are much less likely to do so. Any improvement will be incremental, bu

New Office at Fakenham

We are extremely excited to announce the opening of our new office at 2 Oak Street, Fakenham, from the 31st October 2019. Ben Allen, Managing Director quotes "Our Head Office will remain in Dersingham, however we felt it was now the time to grow the Business and expand to this part of Norfolk. We would like to assure all our clients that our priorities such as high standards of professional service, maintaining our CII Chartered status and providing the most useful technology such as our online portals remain paramount to any growth. We look forward to welcoming new clients to the firm and working closely with local professional connections in Fakenham." As this article is being written, the internal office has been painted, carpets have been laid and now we are just awaiting delivery of furniture, completion of the signage and the painting of the outside of the building. We would love you to attend the opening on the 31st October and as such we will be there to welcome

Charity Golf Day a Success

Allen Tomas & Co Financial Management and Agrifac UK, held its first joint Charity Golf Day raising £3,050 (£1,000 for the Stroke Unit at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and £2,050 for Cancer Research UK). Teams of golfers enjoyed a Texas Scramble format at Heacham Manor Golf Club on Friday 13th September 2019. Event organisers Ben Allen, Michael Crisp, Andrew Carse and Matt Carse decided to raise money for these charities as they have a personal connection to them and know the funds will be used well. The event was won by FENMAN SPESH, Captained by Nick Barker of NB Construction (UK) Ltd playing some fantastic golf. The Red Devils Captained by Jonathan Shippey came second with Michael Crisp’s team of Allen Tomas & Co II finishing third. We won’t name last place!! Well done Fred Case of team Branodunum, who won both the Longest Drives on Holes 4 and 11, and Nearest the Pin on Hole 7. Fred’s team member and Captain, Thomas Oleson, winning Nearest the Pin on Hole 15. We wo

Top 3 IHT Queries

If, on first death, everything is left to the surviving spouse/civil partner, does the survivor now have a lifetime gift threshold of £650,000? Unfortunately, the answer is no, as any available transferable nil rate band (TNRB) can only be used against the IHT arising on the death of the surviving spouse - it cannot be used by the surviving spouse/civil partner for lifetime gifting. There is also a lot of confusion around transferring the residence nil rate band (RNRB), which was introduced in April 2017. The RNRB is transferable between spouses/civil partners on death, much like the standard nil rate band (NRB). It is the unused percentage of the RNRB from the estate of the first to die which can be claimed on the second death. If the first death occurred before April 2017, on the survivor’s death there will be a 100% RNRB available irrespective of whether the first death owned residential property. However, if the first death’s estate was greater than £2m, then the RNRB would be

Allen Tomas & Co employee Leah Bartlett shines

Leah Bartlett joined Allen Tomas & Co in 2018 under the Skills Edge Financial Services Administrator Advanced Apprenticeship scheme. She has made a fantastic start to 2019, she was presented on the 3rd of January with a Norfolk County Scholar award created by the County Council for exceptional performance at A levels and in the same evening was the recipient of the Mark Griffiths award for Endeavour and a subject award in Business sponsored by Stephenson Smart Accountancy. Leah, has been working extremely hard to pass her first Chartered Insurance Institute exam (R01) Financial Services, Regulation and Ethics, which she did in March 2019. To top things off, Leah won the Skills Edge Ap prenticeship Awards 'Recognition of Outstanding Achievement and Contributions to the Organisation'. Skills Edge commented "We are absolutely delighted to announce that Leah has won this award. Leah’s dedication to the apprenticeship and to Allen Tomas & Co Financial Management Ltd

Inflation

Consumer Price Index (CPI) The annual inflation rate in the United Kingdom fell to 1.8 percent in January 2019 from 2.1 percent in the previous month and below market expectations of 1.9 percent. It was the lowest inflation rate since January 2017, mostly due to a slowdown in cost of electricity, gas and other fuels. Inflation Rate in the United Kingdom averaged 2.58 percent from 1989 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 8.50 percent in April of 1991 and a record low of -0.10 percent in April of 2015 Inflation Rate in the United Kingdom is expected to be 1.70 percent by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, they estimate Inflation Rate in the United Kingdom to stand at 2.00 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the United Kingdom Inflation Rate is projected to trend around 2.00 percent in 2020, according to our econometric models. What is the Consumer Price Index (CPI) The CPI is a measure of co

Trustee Act 2000 – The Investment Policy Statement

What are Trusts for Trusts are set up for a number of reasons, including: to control and protect family assets when someone’s too young to handle their affairs when someone cannot handle their affairs because they’re incapacitated to pass on assets while you’re still alive to pass on assets when you die (a ‘will trust’) under the rules of inheritance if someone dies without a will (in England and Wales) The main types of trust are: bare trusts interest in possession trusts discretionary trusts accumulation trusts mixed trusts settlor-interested trusts non-resident trusts What is an Investment Policy Statement A requirement of The Trustee Act 2000 is that an Investment Policy Statement should be prepared for all trusts. This should have had a major impact on all those involved with the drafting or advisory work on trusts, particularly Trustees . Although the Trustee Act states that the investment policy statement should be prepared by the Trustees, in prac

Your Personal Finance Portal

If you have not registered for your Personal Finance Portal or do not know how to use it, please contact us immediately. To access the Portal simply visit our website . For security reasons we would expect all clients to communicate with us through your Personal Finance Portal. We will now only ever send secure/sensitive information this way for example documents such as Financial Planning Reports, Annual Review Reports and Tax Reports. Your Portal provides real-time valuations to your pension/investment plans and allows you to manually update your Bank Accounts/Deposits or NS&I plans. Another great feature is the ability for you to upload your documents to the portal and share them with us, which will automatically update our back-office systems. This is useful at review when we need HMRC correspondence, P60s, payslips, income/expenditure/assets/liabilities spreadsheets or other personal data.

Allen Tomas & Co Retirement and Later Life Events

Later this year Allen Tomas & Co will be hosting retirement and later life planning events at the recently completed Dersingham Village Centre. The purpose of these organised events is to improve the understanding in these complex financial areas and to help signpost the individual or business to the appropriate professional service. The day will be at our expense and consist of presentations, food, drink and question & answer sessions. We strongly recommend you book your place once we confirm the dates through our newsletter, website/blog and journals.

Inheritance Tax relief for business property

Business property relief (BPR) is a valuable inheritance tax relief for business owners whether making a lifetime transfer or on death. Key points Business property relief is a valuable inheritance tax relief for business owners Business owners may receive relief at either 100% or 50%, dependent on circumstances Business property relief is available after an ownership period of two years Types of property that qualifies Inheritance tax (IHT) legislation (IHTA 1984) provides relief for certain types of business or business property included in either a lifetime transfer or the deceased’s death estate. Relief is available for business property anywhere in the world. For deaths and transfers, on or after 6 April 1996, the categories of property which are capable of qualifying as relevant business property are broadly as follows with rate of relief: Property consisting of a business or interest in a business: 100% relief Control holdings of unquoted securities in a compan

Apprentice Leah shines

On Thursday 3rd January 2019, Leah attended the Springwood High School’s Presentation Evening as a former Year 13 student. Upon arrival she received her A level certificates having obtained an A, B and B in Business, Economics and Sociology respectively. Due to her grades she was presented with a Norfolk County Scholar award created by the County Council for exceptional performance at A level. Furthermore, she was honoured to be the recipient of a subject award in Business, sponsored by Stephenson Smart Accountancy as well as receiving the Mark Griffiths Award for Endeavour. Leah has settled in very well with the Company and we wish her well with her CII exams in March.

Director, Michael Crisp has successfully become a Fellow

Director, Michael Crisp has successfully become a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII). Fellowship of the CII is universally regarded as the premier qualification for those working in the insurance industry. By achieving the ACII, you have already demonstrated a high level of commitment, but the Fellowship shows that you have taken this commitment one step further. Acquiring FCII accreditation will further demonstrate your knowledge, experience and professionalism to the world. Michael is now talking about a Doctorate, but we feel it is probably best to enjoy the prestigious Fellowship title first!