Ahead of next week’s budget, George Osborne on Andrew Marr’s show yesterday confirmed that the Long Term Care Cap would be reduced from £75,000 to £72,000 and will be brought forward a year to April 2016. 

The Government has finally announced its reform of long term care following the Dilnot report but the proposed cap is, disappointingly, more than double Andrew Dilnot’s recommendation.

The gilt yield used to calculate drawdown income limits rose to 25% for reviews in February 2013. 

RetireEasy is pleased to report that draft legislation has today been published to increase maximum drawdown income from 100% of GAD to 120% GAD. 

Mark Soper – RetireEasy In his speech last night, Sir Mervyn King stated that the silver lining of the global slowdown was falling inflation -CPI is now down to 3% from 5% a year ago. He went on to announce a huge two-pronged capital injection for the banks.

Richard Collinson – RetireEasy For anyone interested in classic cars, the expectation has always been that the hobby of owning one will be time-consuming, fraught with problems – and a money pit. Although some cars have been appreciating in value for many years, most cost more to run, maintain and refurbish than they could ever […]

Mark Soper – RetireEasy The Pensions Advisory Service has this month published its detailed guidance on taking small pension pots as a lump sum. Sometimes it is just inconceivable how the Treasury and HMRC can get things so wrong – you would think from the complexity of this document that every potential retiree out there […]

Chris Collinson-RetireEasy I am sure we have all heard the current expression “the wettest drought on record”. Certainly in the Midlands British Waterways have temporarily lifted some of the restrications as we, apparently, have “too much water in the canals”!

Mark Soper – RetireEasy We learnt last week that the Pensions Regulator is relaxing the accounting rules for Company Pension Schemes to help them through the economic downturn. The Regulator blamed much of the crisis on low gilt yields which have been directly depressed as a result of the Government’s quantitative easing (QE) programme. The […]

Mark Soper – RetireEasy As the UK officially enters a double-dip recession what actions can retirees take to help mitigate the financial impact? Firstly, we recommend that you thoroughly review where you spend your money. Check out if you can save on your utility, phone and broadband tariffs, bargain hunt for food, clothes, birthday gifts […]