Taxation
Top tips and tools for Tax Year End
60 min read 26 Jan 22
Looking to help clients to make the most of their tax-planning opportunities before the 5 April deadline? Our new video series showcases our technical team’s top 10 tax year end planning tips. Plus, our online tax tools allow you and your clients to test out a range of planning scenarios.
It’s that ‘use or lose it’ time of year again when financial advisers across the country will be encouraging clients to make the most of their annual tax allowances and exemptions and ensure they don’t pay any more tax this year on their pensions and other assets than they need to.
To help, members of the M&G Wealth Technical Team have created a series of short videos exploring their top 10 tips for year-end tax-planning, with lots of simple, practical guidance. Once you've watched the clips, take the quiz for one hour of CPD.
And if you want to demonstrate to clients what their tax liability (or saving) might be under different courses of action, check out the range of tax tools on the M&G Wealth Platform – full details also below.
Top 10 Tax Year End Planning Tips Video Series
Pensions
How much can I pay into my pension?
Mark Devlin takes you through the technicalities of balancing annual allowances and tax relief rules to address the important question: ‘How much can I actually pay into my pension and get tax relief?’
Use it or lose it – annual allowance
Mark Devlin covers the important and, in our view, the most complicated part of pensions – the annual allowance and how to make sure an individual makes the most of theirs.
Higher than marginal relief
Pension tax relief isn’t as simple as getting 20%, 40% or 45%. And the higher the relief the higher the potential returns. Neil MacLeod explains how to work out tax relief and where to find higher than marginal rates.
Relevant earnings – Who’s retiring soon?
Relevant earnings dictate the amount of pension tax relief you can receive so it’s vital to keep an eye on them, especially in the run-up to retirement, as Mark Devlin explains.
Inheritance Tax
IHT - Normal expenditure out of income exemption
Graeme Robb explains how ‘normal expenditure out of income exemption’ works and how you might use it to start making inroads in a client’s IHT liabilities.
IHT – Annual & Small Gifts exemptions
Although large lump sum planning is a way to bite a chunk from any IHT liability, nibbling away at it with regular use of annual exemptions can add up to a fair reduction too, as Barrie Dawson explains.
Capital Gains Tax
Crystallising gains up to the CGT AEA
Graeme Robb explains how to calculate and realise capital gains up to the annual exemption allowance (AEA) and equally important, what individuals might want to do with the proceeds.
Savings
Where do you fund your ISA from?
Individual Savings Accounts are a cornerstone of any financial plan. Neil MacLeod looks at why savers should be putting their cash in an ISA and options if they don’t have cash in the bank.
When investments trigger self-assessment returns
Barrie Dawson explains who has to self-assess, when investments trigger self-assessment returns and planning considerations to help individuals avoid having to self-assess in future years.
Business
Extracting company profits
Individuals' tax year end is 5 April. But for many businesses the company year-end may also be the end of March. For owners seeking to manage their company profits, Barrie Dawson explores how salary, dividends and employer pension contributions can all help.
Online tax-planning tools
M&G Wealth also provides access to a range of tax-planning tools. To access the tools, log in to the platform and go to the Tools Hub.
Explore a range of scenarios for pensions, investments and estate planning, so you and a client can determine their optimal course of action.
Pension tools
- Annual Allowance Calculator – See how the annual allowance could affect a client, whether the standard or tapered allowance applies, and the amount of unused allowance and carry forward they have available.
- Tax Relief Modeller – Explore how pension contributions could affect a client’s tax position, or calculate their tax position regardless of any further pension contributions.
- Salary Sacrifice Calculator – Explore the effect of salary sacrifice on a client’s pension, from lowering pension contribution costs or increasing contributions at the same cost.
- Protected Tax Free Cash Tool – Calculate the scheme-specific protected tax-free cash amount for money purchase arrangements on or after 6 April 2012.
- Emergency Tax Tool – Calculate the impact of Emergency Tax on the payment of the Uncrystallised Fund Pension Lump Sum (UFPLS) and the first payment of drawdown.
Investment & IHT tools
- Bond Gain Tool – Model the potential gain on an investment bond, taking into account different withdrawal/surrender scenarios and a bond’s premium and withdrawal history.
- Inheritance Tax Calculator – Work out the potential IHT liabilities when establishing a discretionary Gift Trust, Discounted Gift Trust or Loan Trust.
The information contained in this page is for professional Financial Adviser use only. If you are a private investor, please visit the Private Investor section or contact your Financial Adviser for more information.