Prison sentences and “unlimited fines” are two draconian penalties HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will have at its disposal from next week for UK taxpayers who evaded tax through offshore means in tax year 2017/18.
The Pensions Ombudsman has ordered AJ Bell to compensate a client for lost interest and pay him £500 ($709, €570) for “significant non-financial injustice” after the investment platform failed to notify him the interest rate of his account would drop to 0%.
Twelve percent of people retiring this year have made no provision for their retirement, with 10% either totally or somewhat reliant on the UK state pension, research from Prudential has found.
Complaints about advice companies made to the UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) eased across the board in the second half of 2017, while Aviva and Barclays bucked the trend and saw complaints rise, according to updated figures.
Easing the advice requirements for transfers of guaranteed pensions to overseas schemes “could have been a recipe for disaster”, AJ Bell senior analyst Tom Selby said of the UK Government’s decision not to scrap the requirement to take financial advice.
Managing client complaints that could put a firm’s good name on the line must be at the heart of a standard planning process.
In any service industry, the question of ‘when?’ can be just as important as ‘how much?’ when it comes to remuneration, explains Danny Knight, director at Old Mutual Wealth Multi-Asset.
The Financial Conduct Authority has released figures on pension freedoms that product providers have described as “concerning” and “do not make for comfortable reading”. International Adviser spoke to industry experts to get their thoughts on the data.
The UK has lost its reputation as a top destination among high net worth individuals, who have been left disenchanted by the direction of government policy, prompting an outflow to more attractive jurisdictions.
Many fund selectors believe clients often end up damaging their own portfolios when insisting on bad investment ideas, according to a survey conducted at our sister publication Expert Investor’s Pan-European Congress in Rome.
Ian Kloss, Old Mutual International’s Head of Region (SE Asia) & CEO Singapore, talks innovation in the Asian IFA Market.
The disclosure scheme that allows US taxpayers hiding offshore accounts to come clean and face more lenient penalties will close in September 2018, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced this week.
