A review of your financial and tax planning to maximise your net income and your business and family assets should now be high on your agenda prior to the tax-year end on 5 April 2012.
One of the principal tenets of spreading risk in your portfolio is to diversify your investments whatever the time of year. Diversification is the process of investing in areas that have little or no relation to each other. This is called a ‘low correlation’.
The future is always unknown, but when it comes to retirement it pays to be in the know
Have you made sure your beneficiaries will be looked after?
The effects of ignoring the issue and failing to appreciate the value of protecting your family
You may decide to use a trust to pass assets to beneficiaries, particularly those who aren’t immediately able to look after their own affairs. If you do use a trust to give something away, this removes it from your estate provided you don’t use it or get any benefit from it. But bear in mind that gifts into trust may be liable to inheritance tax.
Effective inheritance tax planning could save your beneficiaries thousands of pounds, maybe even hundreds of thousands depending on the size of your estate. At its simplest, inheritance tax (IHT) is the tax payable on your estate when you die if the value of your estate exceeds a certain amount.
Insurance for long-term care means that you pay (either in premiums or a lump sum) for your provider to take care of costs for you. State provision is currently very complicated and typically only assists people once their personal assets have fallen below a certain level. The level of help also varies from one local authority to another.