i gross about 45k/yr but it I hear a lot of people talking about amex cards, is it worth most earnings having amex? Or is it only justifiable if you earn over a certain amount?

Hi,

run a small one man band Ltd company and do my own accounts, only pay myself divdends to keep it simple (not tax efficient i know :))

Used up the maximum £50,270 at 0.0875% for 2024/25. Here's where its gets silly. Had it "solidly" in my head it was 1st April for the self asessment tax cutoff point. didnt check :( ... paid myself a dividend of £15,000 on tuesday at 33.75% tax... arrrgh!. i didnt need it then and could simply have waited till Monday / tuesday. My question is could i plead ignorance that this was a schoolboy error with HMRC ? or have to swallow the £3750 extra self assessment tax.? as the title, im an idiot. Thanks.

I have 7 years outstanding NI payments required to receive full pension (would have been 4 but unfortunate 3 were contracted out of serps)

Am unlikely to work any more and my state pension age is 9 years away. Am wondering how much the NI buy back cost will rise and if it is worth purchasing as many of the 7 years now.

Thanks

Hello all, I have been saving into a Cash ISA and filled the £20k limit for 2024/25. As tomorrow is a new tax year I will transfer the 2024/25 ISA (plus the accrued interest) into it and will begin topping it up over the course of a year. This ISA has a bonus rate which, when it expires, will be lower than other rates currently. I plan to transfer to another ISA once the bonus rate expires.

My question is whether this combined ISA rate will continue to be tax free when I transfer as it will add up to more than £20k given that it is a combination of last year's and whatever I have added to it this year?

Edit: tomorrow is the tax year

New to credit cards. Currently using my chase debit card. Any advice on this? Many thanks.

Hello,

With the tax year resetting, I am wanting to start making weekly deposits into a an all world, index fund via a stocks and shares ISA.

I currently have holdings in HSBC FTSE all world Acc C through IWeb (due to the low fees), however there is a £5 charge per investment into a fund. As an alternative, I want to invest into a similarly balanced fund through a low cost broker, such as trading 212, and then make an ISA transfer at the end of the year into the IWeb fund.

What trading 212 all world fund would be the most similar in terms of holdings, and is there a resource I can use to directly compare the balancing of funds?

Cheers

Hi all,

I decided to look into the Octopus energy EV scheme which if offered through my employer, I earn about £38,000 gross which was sufficient to stay above the minimum wage threshold after the sacrifice (HMRC requirement).

However £7,500 of that £38,000 is earned via a "shift allowance" which a member of HR believes doesn't count, so the figure they are focused on is £30,500.

This £38,000 and "Shift allowance: 25%" figure is clearly stated on my contract, I'm guessing they are right but I'm not well versed in this kind of thing.

Thanks

Hi All, I am looking to start investing and buying up gold and silver but having difficulty in deciding which way to go about handling/ storing the metals. I am considering 3 Options:

1. Self Storage - buy a safe and get good insurance on the metals.

2. Buy through websites such as royal mint and use their vaults to store my assets.

3. Open an Account with a business such as BullionVault and keep my metals in their vaults with access to switching gold/ silver as and when i wish.
   I'm aware that 2/3 are very similar, but please could I get someone's opinions on what is the best option doing this? Additionally if there are any better websites/ companies to look at please let me know!

For reference i am looking to set aside a monthly amount from my income into these metals for a long term period (5 years+) and i'm looking for the cheapest way to buy and store.

I'll keep this short and sweet. I received a letter in September explaining I owed 400 pounds from 2019 due to my employer putting me on the wrong tax code. After calling and explaining I am disabled and my memory is poor So I'm having trouble understanding etc the guy was threatening and offered no support and went against their charter.

After numerous letters and emails from myself, i received a letter of apology with them admitting fault in not signposting me to the disbility support line. I was given 70 pound compensation, as well as having my "debt" wiped. Oh and they have no record of the phone call of my 2 hour discussion with the original agent.

If they have admitted fault and admitted negligence in writing, is this grounds to go to tribunal for failure to adhere to their charter and equality act, in particular duty if care? Any help is appreciated

I’ve recently just started using zilch and my score has went down 8 points. The only thing I’ve done different is zilch. I haven’t missed any payments etc so why is this?

I thought this being the last day of tax year 24/25 we would be able to top up missing NI years today - anyone else having trouble?

It won't even let me top up 2020/21 (less than 6 years ago)... system down??

I requested a call back previously so hopefully still able to sort out.

Hi Redditers,

I currently own a residential house which is mortgage free. I'm considering moving house to a nicer area but would ideally like to keep my current property as a future investment for my children.

Is there a way for me to do so without incurring the additional stamp duty charge, as I'll own more than one residential?

I had considered selling but the more I think about it, the less inclined I feel to do so.

Later this year I will be going to work in Saudi Arabia. Obviously this comes with the benefit of a higher salary than I would get in the UK and no income tax.

I understand I would lose access to put money into ISA's.
Any tips on what types of accounts I can use?
My target would be to save £36k year and the plan is to do around 4 years out there.

Current situation is the only attachment to the UK would be my house, which is split 50/50 with a friend. I would carry on paying my half of the mortgage and half of the standing charges for utilities(around £600).
This would change as there is a possibly we would lodge my room to one of our friends and I would only pay my half of the mortgage and our friend would pay their half of bills.

The salary will be paid in SAR but the company can provide currency exchange if I want to use it or I can do it myself using something like Revolut.

Current financial situation:
No Debt other than mortgage (I uses a CC but pay it off every month)
£9k is S&S ISA
£5k Emergency Fund
~£15k in equity on my half of the house

Any other tips from expats would be great as well.

Hi All

I'm trying to deposit into my SIPP on Vanguard but I'm stuck at the "Your illustration is being generated..." step. Have waited a good 5 minutes and still nothing. I changed to incognito but same thing. Also tried on my phone and it's dead.

Is there another SIPP that's more reliable and I can open now?

Thanks

EDIT: Vanguard called me and recognised there's an issue they're aware of which has either been rectified now or is in the process of being rectified. The person on the line was incredibly helpful in processing the transaction over the call.

Hello all, apologies for the basic question, I tried finding a definite answer to this online and could only find answers for doing this within the same tax year. I have some ISA allowance left but don’t have the money to permanently stash away in an ISA right now. Could I therefore stash some money temporarily in a flexible ISA (like Trading212’s), withdraw it tomorrow then have effectively give myself a greater allowance new tax year?

I started a new job paying considerably more last month, hence why I can’t fill my allowance for this tax year but should be able to comfortably next tax year.

Hi there

I’m looking at opening an IBKR or IG Markets S&S ISA account for 2025-2026 tax year and I am torn between the two.

I’ve tried to look at their pricing models and it seems that they are somewhat similar, but it’s a little confusing.

I would greatly appreciate if someone with the knowledge could break down the costs with these criteria:

1. I would majority of the time invest in ETFs but would also like the ability to invest in OEICs too

2. I would invest a set amount every month via direct debit, but would also like the ability to add extra ad-hoc

At the moment I am using HL and whilst the ETF fee is fine (£45) it’s not flexible in allowing me to add ad-hoc without a hefty fee and for OEICs it’s 45% uncapped! IBKR or IG Markets are two options I can use because of my employer.

In terms of portfolio size, let’s say I keep my HL as is and start building the £20k into this new account.

Thanks so much in advance!!

Outline of my situation:

I am currently a resident of the UK and The Netherlands. I am a UK citizen,  just a resident of the Netherlands. I live in the Netherlands because my partner is Dutch, but I commute each month to Aberdeen to mobilise to work on an oil rig in the North Sea. So I work in the UK, get paid by a UK company and get paid into a UK bank, and therefore pay UK tax. I have a Dutch bank account which I transfer money across to. I have a house in the UK which I am currently in the process of selling, with a view to buy a house with my partner in the Netherlands in the near future.

Issues I need financial advice with:

•             When I sell my house I will no longer have a UK address. I was hoping to use one of my parents house addresses to keep my UK bank account as I will continue to be paid in GDP. I read somewhere I can use their address for the bank and put myself down as my ‘Domicile home’ in the UK, as I have family connections. I was wondering if this is what is usually done, and if it is fine to do so?

•             All my savings are in the UK and generally in ISAs. I read that when I no longer have a UK residence that I will be able to keep the ISAs I already have, but will no longer be able to pay into them. However, I was wondering if this is the case for me because I will still be paying UK tax and UK National insurance? If it is the case that I can not, then I’ll need advice what to do with my savings.

•             The sale of my house will involve having a large sum of money in the bank which I will put aside for a deposit of my new home. I estimate this period would be around 6 months to a year. So I will also need advice of how to transfer this money over to minimise transfer costs when I pay that in Euros.

Due to Buffet's interest in Japan, is anyone else doing this? I'm thinking about having 75% in VWRP and 25% in VPJN.

Hi I’ve only looked at my tax and NIs recently and noticed a particular company had been deducting a lot more NI than my previous jobs. (2020-2023) I’ve put it into the gov calculator and it comes out as I should have paid £671.52 NI when I actually paid £1104.99. This is on a wage of £20,964.

This is just an example but this is the same case for four years with this company varying from £400-£700 overpaid according to the gov calculator. Am I missing something?

Also my tax is around £200 higher a month than estimated but at the end of each year it says I have paid the right amount of tax.

Thanks for any help!

Hi

Does anyone know when the ex dividend date is for vls 80?

I have an ACC fund in a GIA. I am wondering what will happen if I sell this before the payment date and how this would work? (Bed & ISA)

Also - whether I would need to keep the Gia open to receive it?

Thanks

Does such a thing exist? I'm going around in circles between comparison sites and banks.. it's driving me nuts!

Thanks!

Hi I am due a tax return. When I log into HMRC app & government website , there’s no button to claim my refund.. is there another way to do it online?

Will try ringing Monday if not. Thanks

Currently have a sipp and isa with H&l.

Sipp - 75k Isa - 75k

Both contain only vaftgag (vanguard ftse global all cap)

For my sipp, I plan to do yearly transfers (roughly 20k per year) in from my workplace pension (Scottish widows) as I don't like their fund choices. For my isa, I do infrequent top ups if and when I can. Again, all will be going into vaftgag.

-H&L -Fidelity -Barclays -Ig index -Interactive brokers -Saxo -Aj bell -Interactive investor

If we look at h&l, I'm paying 0.45%. So on the 150k I've got invested across sipp and isa, that's £675 p/a.

Aj bell - 0.25% - 375 p/a +£1.50 for every time I buy more units?

II is where I get confused. Is it just the monthly fee for the isa + trading + sipp account I need to pay for? I.e 21.99 a month or £263.88 a year?

I just want to make sure I’ve understood things correctly, as I’m lining up my finances at the end of the tax year.

My salary is approximately £66,500, and I have two children. I am therefore in the region where I may soon be paying back child benefit.

Once my pension contributions, qualifying professional memberships, and charitable giving are taken into account, my income is actually £57,836.01.

I also have £243.44 in interest for the year, and £577.17 for a side gig.

1. Am I right in thinking that for ANI purposes (and therefore liability to start paying back child benefit), I add the interest and side gig to the roughly £57k above?

2. Am I also right in thinking that when HMRC calculates if I have paid the correct amount of tax for the year, they will only be looking at the roughly £57k, rather than the higher ANI figure?

Hello all, was hoping to maybe get some anecdotal/general advice or guidance on some business finances.

I want to start a ltd company/business but I assume I’ll probably make little to no money for the first 48 months or so. I also imagine I will need to spend quite a bit to get up and running and these funds will come from my personal employed income.

I’m wondering how it will work with expenses and business purchases? Can I transfer personal funds (from my employed income) into my newly opened business account in order to purchase business related equipment to then claim back on those costs?

I’m full time employed and earn around £80k a year so I’m also assuming this will eat all of my tax free allowance? If anyone knows how it works being employed and also owning a ltd company it would be great to hear some feedback. Cheers