Insights

The first Pension Clinic will be held from 9am – 12pm on Thursday 31 October at our office. 

We are delighted to announce that Matthew Clark has been named as one of three finalists for the prestigious Personal Finance Society (PFS) Chartered Financial Planner of the Year Award 2013 (Individual).

Investing for income? When 1.5% on the High Street is the norm, is there a better way? We are holding this topical seminar in conjunction with experts from leading investment institutions on Thursday 24 October from 5pm to 7pm at the Exeter Golf & Country Club. As the event is filling up fast, to secure your free place, please call Leah Thorne on 01392 875500 or email events@SeabrookClark.co.uk

Pension savers who have opted to keep their funds invested instead of buying an annuity are benefiting from a rise in the income limit from October to its highest level for two years.

Improving the care given to the UK’s most vulnerable older people will be given top priority by the Government next year, Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt has pledged. 

As a keen runner, I enjoyed watching the impressive performances of our Olympic athletes, Mo Farah and Jonathan Brownlee last weekend, and I will be cheering Bradley Wiggins as the cycling Tour of Britain heads for Dartmoor on Friday.

As a firm believer in charity, I am very excited that this weekend the Devon Air Ambulance Trust will be celebrating its 21st birthday. Like many charities across the West Country, they do invaluable work for local people, fulfilling a vital life-saving role. A successful charity requires diligent trustees, who are increasingly dependent on professional advice to support their decisions which must be reviewed on an annual basis to ensure any investments are suited to the charity’s needs.

We are delighted to host the second Professional Women’s Working Lunch on 11 September 2013 at our office. This time the group will look at how ‘Twitter and Tweeting’ can assist in developing a niche and using community conversations to become known as experts in a chosen field of expertise.

For many years personal pensions have had a tarnished image in many people’s eyes as a result of poor investment performance, high charges and complicated rules despite extremely valuable tax savings. I am excited that we are now entering a new dawn for pensions, which should help employees focus on their long-term financial planning and reverse years of decline in retirement saving where less than half the UK workforce has a private pension and traditional final salary pensions are becoming the exception outside the public sector.

The quiet Summer months are a good time to collate the information required for an annual tax return to avoid a last minute rush in January. Whilst the recent news that the private sector is growing at its fastest rate since 1998 is very welcome, government finances will remain stretched for years to come. As well as the programme of austerity with cuts in welfare spending, the government has given HMRC an additional £1b so it has the teeth to pursue tax evaders more effectively.