Monthly Archives: March 2013

The child benefit tax charge, introduced on 7 January, affects over one million families

A family with 2 children could soon see their annual spendable income drop by up to £1,752 p.a. in 2013/14, while those with 3 children could lose £2,449 pa. With prices rising faster than incomes, it is imperative for many families to know how they will be affected, and what options are available to help improve their situation.

What are the implications of the tax charge?
Benefit payments will continue to be paid in full to the claimant, but if the household’s highest earner’s personal taxable income exceeds £50,000 per tax year then the amount will be clawed back by way of a tax charge. Once taxable income exceeds £60,000 in a tax year, the charge will be 100 per cent of the benefit claimed i.e. the value of the benefit is wiped out. For incomes between £50,000 and £60,000, the tax charge is 1 per cent for every £100 income exceeds the £50,000 threshold. Overall, these people will benefit, as the tax charge will always be less than the benefit claimed.

For the 2012/13 tax year, the tax charge will never exceed 25 per cent of the yearly benefit claimed as the tax charge will only have been operational for one quarter of the current tax year. As such, the tax will be limited to £438 where benefit is being claimed for 2 children, or £612 for 3 children. Around 500,000 people will need to complete a tax return for the first time. The tax charge will be collected under self assessment; therefore, for those submitting online, the first return will need to be in by 31 January 2014. It is important to note that failure to do so could result in fines and late payment penalties.

What action can be taken?
This will very much depend on an individual’s personal circumstances and priorities. Making an individual pension contribution to reduce income to below £50,000 would wipe out the child benefit tax charge altogether, while higher rate tax relief would also be available on the contribution if it all falls in the higher rate band. Any contribution reducing income to a level between £50,000 and £60,000 will still result in a surplus of child benefit over the tax charge, and a tax return would still need to be completed.

A pension contribution by salary sacrifice is an alternative way of reducing taxable income. With the employer’s agreement, an employee can reduce their contractual income in return for an equivalent employer payment to their pension. The employee will also save NI at 2 per cent for payments over the upper earnings limit – if the employer agrees to pass their 13.8 per cent NI saving on to the pension then the contribution itself can be increased. Another alterative is to simply continue claiming the benefit and paying the tax, which is a more likely consideration for those families where the higher earner has adjusted net income between £50,000 and £60,000, when the benefit will still exceed the tax charge.

The important tenets of his investment philosophy and mythology

Warren Buffett is considered by many as the most successful investor of the 20th century and named “one of the most influential people in the world” by Time magazine in 2012. In this article we look at Buffett’s investment mythology and analyse some of the most important tenets of his investment philosophy.

Finding low-priced value
While evaluating the relationship between a stock’s level of excellence and its price, Buffett asks himself several questions to find low-priced value:

Has the company consistently performed well? 
He looks at a company’s return on equity (ROE) and determines whether or not they have consistently performed successfully, compared with others in the same industry. However, looking at the ROE of a company over the last year alone isn’t enough. To get a better perspective of historic performance, investors should view the ROE from the past 5-10 years.

Has the company avoided excess debt? 
Buffett also considers the debt/equity ratio of a company, as he would prefer to see minimal amounts of debt, meaning that earnings growth is being generated from shareholders’ equity and not from borrowed money. A high level of debt compared to equity will result in volatile earnings and large interest expenses.

Are profit margins high? Are they increasing? 
Not only does the profitability of a company depend on a good profit margin but also their margins consistently increasing. A high profit margin means that the company is not only executing its business well, but increasing margins means management has been efficient and successful at controlling expenses. Investors should look back at least five years to get a clear indication of a company’s historical margins.

How long has the company been public? 
One of Buffett’s criteria is longevity: value investing means looking at companies that have stood the test of time but are currently undervalued. He will usually consider companies that have been around for at least 10 years, meaning that he would not consider most of the technology companies that have had their initial public offerings (IPOs) in the past decade. Historical performance is also crucial – determining if a company can perform as well going forward as it has done in the past is tricky, but Buffett is very good at it.

Do the company’s products rely on a commodity? 
He will usually steer clear from investing in companies whose products are indistinguishable from those of their competitors; if they don’t offer anything different than another firm within the same industry, Buffett sees little that sets them apart. He uses the term ‘economic moat’ as a way of describing any characteristic that is hard to replicate; the wider the moat, the harder it is for a competitor to gain market share.

Is the stock selling at a 25 per cent discount to
its real value? 
The most difficult part of value investing is determining whether a company is undervalued, and is Buffett’s most important skill. Investors must analyse a number of business fundamentals, including earnings, revenues and assets, to determine a company’s intrinsic value, which is usually higher than its liquidation value.
Buffett will then compare it to its current market capitalisation. If his measurement of intrinsic value is at least 25 per cent, he sees the company as one that has value – the key to this depends on his unmatched skill in accurately determining this intrinsic value.

The proof is in the pudding
As you can see from the above examples, Buffett’s investing style reflects a practical, down-to-earth attitude. This value-investing style is not without its critics, but nobody can question the success it has brought. The thing to remember is that the most difficult thing for any value investor is in accurately determining a company’s intrinsic value.

Information is based on our current understanding of taxation legislation and regulations. Levels and bases of and reliefs from taxation are subject to legislative change and their value depends on the individual circumstances of the investor. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested.

Uncertain election results rekindle euro-crisis fears

The prospect of a long period of political uncertainty following elections in Italy, the euro zone’s third-largest economy, has shattered months of uneasy calm in European financial markets and demonstrated that the currency union remains prey to shocks.

Italy’s protest vote against the Eurocrats has wrenched market attention away from the hunt for yield and back onto political risk. The social disaffection caused by youth unemployment has been strikingly reflected by the surge of the Five Star movement.

Italian economic fundamentals are fragile and the recession still deep. At best, the political impasse in Italy will push back the market’s expectation of a recovery there. At worst, the contraction could deepen as consumer and business confidence cowers under an extended period of political uncertainty.

Austerity-first solution
The elections have also emphasised that the most powerful opposition to the euro-zone crisis managers’ austerity-first solution to the bloc’s financial crisis could come from the ballot box. Three polls last year—a referendum in Ireland on new fiscal rules and elections in the Netherlands and Greece—went in favour of the euro’s political masters, in Greece’s case only just. However, in Italy, the euro zone seems to have run out of luck in a vote interpreted as a rejection both of the country’s traditional political class and of the austerity many Italians see as being imposed on them by Brussels and Berlin.

Financial-market tranquillity
The return of growth in Southern Europe is officially projected to be reached in the next 12-18 months, but may have been further postponed due to recent uncertainty. But there was no sign of any rethink: euro-zone governments and the European Commission have urged Italy to stick to the path of economic overhauls and budget stringency. The election has challenged the optimism beginning to emerge among politicians that the crisis was over, which had been encouraged by the financial-market tranquillity following the promise from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi in July to “do whatever it takes” to save the euro.

A grand coalition
We can now expect weeks of hiatus in the Italian political system as political leaders discuss whether they can form a grand coalition that can govern the country seems a certainty. Nothing formal can happen until March 15, at the earliest, when Parliament is formally convened. By May 15, President Giorgio Napolitano’s mandate will expire and a new president must be elected. An early decision to call new elections seems unlikely: to do so in an apparent effort to get the “right result” for the EU risks a further backlash among voters.

Fiscal discipline
The political will to preserve Eurozone stability has been proven in Greece. A new government in Italy, when it is eventually formed, is more likely to be unstable and ineffective than unorthodox and radical. Fiscal discipline is likely to be broadly preserved even if serious structural reforms are now off the agenda. Hence, the negative market reaction to events in Italy may provide an opportunity to buy into the periphery, albeit at significantly higher yields. It will be important to keep an eye on the rating agencies, who could well jangle nerves with another downgrade if policy uncertainty in Italy persists.

The UK has lost its AAA credit rating for the first time since the 1970s

The credit rating agency Moody’s, at the end of February, downgraded the UK’s sovereign debt rating from AAA to AA1, relegating the UK to the second tier for the first time since 1978. The announcement made headline news, but it was far from unexpected and the possibility of a downgrade had been predicted; the coalition government is taking longer than expected to reduce the UK’s sizable deficit and all three leading credit rating agencies – Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s – had already placed the UK on a “negative” outlook during 2012, stoking expectations of a downgrade.

Government’s capacity to repay its debts
Credit ratings provide an indication of a government’s capacity to repay its debts, but any concerns about the downgrade leading to a rise in the borrowing costs for the UK appear overplayed, at least if the recent experiences of the US and France are any indication: the US lost its AAA status in August 2011 while France was downgraded in November 2012. The borrowing costs of both nations have declined since their respective downgrades while their main stockmarket indices have risen significantly.

Fiscal consolidation programme
The implications of the UK’s downgrade are likely to prove more political than economic. Moody’s announcement highlighted the challenges that “subdued medium-term growth prospects pose to the government’s fiscal consolidation programme” and the coalition government continues to face substantial challenges in its attempts to reduce the UK’s debt levels. Politicians have placed considerable value on the UK’s top credit rating – indeed, in the Conservative Party’s manifesto of spring 2010, George Osborne pledged to “safeguard Britain’s credit rating”. As such, the news of the downgrade puts more pressure on the Chancellor of the Exchequer than on the economy itself.

Catalyst for fresh trouble
Taking everything into consideration, a drop in the UK’s credit rating is not likely to make much difference to the fundamental performance or health of the country’s economy. Although Moody’s decision highlights the challenges that the government face, the downgrade itself is likely to represent a symptom of the existing problems rather than a catalyst for fresh trouble.

Promising growth prospects
The decline in the value of sterling is likely to continue, as investors move their money into currencies used by countries with more promising growth prospects. A weaker pound would certainly help exporters, but it also makes imports more expensive. The price of petrol has already risen over the past month, and further increases like this are likely to put more pressure on household incomes and company profits, as well as on economic growth as a whole. A lower credit rating could also make it more expensive for the UK to borrow money.

Longer to resolve than expected
In a similar way to borrowing from a High Street bank, if you are in a well-paid job and are living within your means, you will have to pay a lower interest rate on a loan than someone who the bank thinks is overstretched and maybe not able to keep up with repayments. At present, the UK needs to borrow more than £100bn a year from investors, both at home and around the world. It seems that the UK’s economic problems, in line with many other countries, will take longer to resolve than expected.

Measures introduced through the Care and Support Bill come into effect in April 2017

Bills for long-term care in old age are to be capped at £75,000 in England. The recent announcement for changes to social care is thought to be part-funded by a freeze on the inheritance tax ‘nil rate band’ threshold.

Chancellor George Osborne announced during the Autumn Statement 2012 that inheritance tax rates would rise from £325,000 (£650,000 for married couples and registered civil partners) to £329,000 (£658,000 for couples) in 2015/16. This will now be delayed until 2018/19. As a result of this three-year extension, more people could be subject to an inheritance tax bill. Inheritance tax is charged at 40 per cent and is payable when the value of an estate exceeds the available nil rate band threshold.

Disappointment at the level of the cap
Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, told the Commons in February that the ‘historic’ long-term care reforms would save thousands of people from having to sell their family home to pay for care. Some campaigners voiced their disappointment at the level of the cap, which was more than double the £35,000 recommended by the independent Dilnot Commission in 2011.

Means-tested government support
Alongside the cap, Mr Hunt announced a rise – from £23,250 to £123,000 – in the asset threshold beneath which people will receive means-tested government support for care bills. He also announced a lower cap on costs for people who develop care needs before retirement age, as well as free care for those who have needs when they turn 18.

Andrew Dilnot, whose report recommended a cap of between £25,000 and £50,000, said he was disappointed by the government’s proposal of a higher level, but did not think it would undermine his system.

The proposed £75,000 cap from 2017 equated to £61,000 at 2011 prices, he pointed out.
The measures will be introduced through
the Care and Support Bill and come into effect in April 2017.