The summer holiday month was anything but relaxing for investors in UK shares. As well as being the title of an Edna O’Brien novel, “August is a wicked month” probably sums up how many investors felt about the month. It was all going rather unexcitingly around the middle of the month, when the combination of […]

The Finance Bill is giving venture capital pause for thought. One of the attractive features of venture capital trusts (VCTs) is that their dividends are normally free of personal tax – something which will become more appealing from the 2016/17 tax year, when the new dividend tax rules begin. Many VCTs have automatic reinvestment schemes […]

New EU rules about succession came into force on 17 August. If you own a holiday home on the continent, new EU regulations on cross-border succession could be important to you, even though the UK has opted out of the legislation. The new regulations will allow you to choose for your overseas property to be […]

The latest inflation figures showed virtually zero inflation and nothing to worry about…or did they? The July Consumer Prices Index (CPI) was marginally higher than expected at 0.1%. However the reading marked the sixth consecutive month in which the CPI had been within 0.1% of zero. So has inflation disappeared? The answer’s not that simple. […]

HMRC has issued a factsheet about next year’s dividend tax changes. The Summer Budget announcement of a change to the rules on dividend taxation from next April caused many furrowed brows. The situation was not helped by the very limited detail available from HMRC on the new regime and no legislation in the Finance Bill […]