Another year, another tax return: Pt 3

After you’ve found your way through the Forest, you and Fido will enjoy climbing Savings Hill. Protecting your hard-earned cash against the ravages of the taxman may be easier than you think.

You’ve already negotiated the Pension Forest, and whilst there you should have considered whether to make additional pension contributions before the end of the tax year. Despite

its complexities, a Personal Pension Plan remains the only true onshore tax haven available to most of us, so it’s definitely something to investigate on your journey.

The next landmark on Savings Hill is the humble ISA, short for Individual Savings Account. ISAs can protect you against the impact of tax on both your interest and dividend income, and you can invest up to £15,240 before 5th April. The vast majority of ISAs are the Cash variety, but these may become superfluous for many people who are well within the new Savings Allowance, but if you have income from dividends they remain highly attractive when the changes come into effect.

The Chancellor announced some interesting changes to ISAs last week, but they don’t come into effect until 2017 so we won’t go into them here.

If you’d like a summary of the Budget proposals, though, you can get this from our website at www.chestertonhouse.co.uk/budget2016, or call our office and we’ll send you a copy.

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