My partner recently paid the deposit on a wedding dress in store. The merchant charged her a fee for using a credit card, equivalent to roughly 2.5%.

I’m pretty certain this has been illegal since 2018, and the merchant seems to be hiding it.

The invoice has no reference to the fee (just the total without the fee) and the card machine receipt only has the total with the fee, but no line item specifically for fee.

For example:

1. The invoice says total: £1,000
2. The card machine receipt says total: £1,025

I’m almost certain this is illegal. Am I missing something in the rules?

I already max out my Stocks and Shares ISA and LISA. Now I’ve come into some money which I want to put into a general investment account and invest into the same set of ETF I invest in my ISA accounts.

All the ETFs I’m interested in have a U.K. Reporting status but what I’m not sure about is how the accumulation ETFs are taxed? I’m an additional rate tax payer and was wondering if I just pay the CGT or would have to consider the dividend-reinvesting as income and thus taxed at my additional rate.

I am soon to complete on a house and will be withdrawing 70k from ISAs. These are in flexible ISAs. So I am curious if it is a good idea to take out as large a loan as I can in say March of next year - put it all in my cash ISA - then in April after the tax year withdraw it all and pay off the loan. This will in effect carry forward to flexible ISA allowance of 70k into the next tax year - which will give me more than enough time to fill it back up again to 70k+20. I wont be investing with this money just simply using it for interest so as little risk as possible - its just that I earn over 100k so have no personal allowance for interest earning and believe this will be a good idea to preserve as much isa as possible. Cheers!

Hey all,

Looking for some advice on how to legally avoid a CGT bill on my crypto gains now that I’m about to leave the UK. I’m Spanish, been living here for six years, and I’m heading out in November 2024—so this month. First stop is South America for 3-6 months, then a month back in the UK before moving to Australia. I don’t plan to come back long-term, but you never know.

Here’s my situation: I invested £20k of my work savings (saved up over a year and a half) into altcoins in March 2024. By June 2025, that might be worth around £200k. If I cash out, I’d be looking at a CGT bill of about £30k, which I’d prefer not to pay to HMRC.

I’ve heard moving somewhere tax-friendly for 183+ days, like Portugal, could help reduce CGT on crypto. Switzerland might be an option too. So a few questions: 1. Should I cash out to my UK bank, or would I need to open a Portuguese or Swiss account? 2. Can I legally withdraw the initial £20k investment (my job savings) without reporting it?

If anyone’s been in a similar situation or has insights, I’d really appreciate the advice! Thanks!

Hello, for CGT purposes I know I could sell Vanguard all world tracker and immediately buy HSBC all world reacker and still harvest my CGT allowance for that year.

How does this work for an ETF? Can I sell an ETF on Gold from say Blackrock and then buy another gold ETF from say Invesco? Thanks!

Edit: Monevator link that explains this: https://monevator.com/defuse-capital-gains-on-shares/

I'm currently renting, and have a tenancy agreement until the end of 2025, but hoping to buy my first home in time to move into around then. Through years of saving, some good work bonuses plus recent inheritances I'm now sitting on a bit more than enough cash to buy without a mortgage.
I've already maxed out ISAs and PBs, but still most of it is just in savings accounts at 4-5%. As a higher rate taxpayer I'm paying a lot on the interest. So I'm looking at putting most of it into short duration low coupon gilts as a way of safely growing it a bit in the ~1yr timeframe with less tax (and without locking it into an exactly 1 year fixed saver).

The part I'm having trouble deciding is which gilts to go for between TN25, TG25 and T26, or splitting/moving it between these. I hope to need it for house purchase some time late 2025.

Based on yieldgimp the current returns are showing better for the shorter ones, so I could put all in TN25, move all to TG25 when that matures and so on, though of course I don't know how these rates will change it in the meantime, so maybe just put all in T26 and keep it simple and near 3.92% net guaranteed? (I'd be likely to need to sell it a month or 2 before T26 maturity, but presumably the risk of it being much below par then is very small). Or just all into TG25, where I'm fairly sure I won't need it until after maturity, and I'll just be paying the extra tax on the interest for the few months it moves back into regular savings.

Hi there, (in UK)

SLOVED: One's the US site, one's the UK site.

I was going to open a SIPP Personal Pension Plan with Vanguard based on advice here, but I'm on Google and there's two Vanguard sites:

vanguardinvestor.co.uk

vanguard.com

https://my.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/onboardsipp/initiatesipp/intro

https://web-registration.vanguard.com/start

They both look very real, is one of these a scam website?

Their twitter / x leads to vanguard.com and there's no mention at all of vanguardinvestor.co.uk so is that fake site?

You get this all the time with fake delivery company url text with urls that look a bit correct.

Thanks for your help.

My mother is 60 years old and has around 150k in an uncrystallised private pension that she has saved throughout her life, that she would like to gift to 3 people - myself, my sibling and my newborn niece. Due to the changes around inheritance tax she would like to do so sooner rather than later.

She would also like us to eventaully inherit our 3-bed semi childhood home which is currently valued at around £500k, so that would use up the entire tax-free allowance. She is also divorced from my father, so can't combine the allowance in that way.

Her finances are healthy, she has a defined benefit pension that she has started drawing from this year, and she's also a basic rate tax payer as she has an income from a hobby that she turned into a business many years ago. She loves this hobby and will probably continue with it for 10, maybe even 15 years.

She's (touch wood) very fit and healthy, with no family history of illness that requires long term care.

What are her options for gifting us the 150k pension?

One option seems to be withdrawing 25% of her pension, and thereafter siphoning regular contributions into our SIPPs over the course of several years? For example, 2k per person year over the course of 20 years. She would be taxed the basic rate on withdrawal, but I believe we would each be able to claim tax relief if it's deposited into a SIPP. This would also hopefully not be subject to inheritance tax as a "regular payment out of income with no impact on quality of living."

Assuming she is likely to live for at least another 7 years, would that be reasonable or could that be considered tax evasion/deprivation of assets?

Another thing is that she is not happy with, is the pension provider her pension is with. It's actively managed so has fairly high costs, and has done much less well in the past couple of years than for example my S&S ISAs and SIPP invested in index funds. Would she be able to move this money to a SIPP or at least to another provider with lower fees?

She's open to getting financial advice, but for a flat fee rather than a percentage of her total wealth like this private provider.

After getting paid I am paying the monthly amount to loans, I have just enough to live on. Wondering if I should withdraw money from S&S ISA and clear all of the debts or just keep paying them down monthly? Job is stable so not worried from that perspective.

Currently the only amount I'm saving per month is £250 back into the ISA.

Savings:
25% equity in mortgage
£25K Tax free ISA (20% gain from last year thanks to the madness that is the US stock market)
£4000 instant access savings

Debt:
£3100 personal loan at 1.9% (was 10k over 5 years)
£5600 credit card (0% until Dec 2025) regret this one
£4100 student loan (4.3% at current rates, plan 1)

Was planning on withdrawing 10k and just clearing everything.. . the inerest from the student and personal loan isn't much but I'm just sick of paying those lol

Also remortgage due mid next year, so moving from a 2% rate to 4% will put me in the red monthly I think.

I just opened a s&s isa with barclays. Their fees appear appear excessive, but I’m not sure I’m interpreting properly.

0.25% on everything. £6 per trade Forex fee 1%

I guess these become less consequential if you’re dealing with higher numbers, but what I want to do is invest another £100 monthly into s&p500.

By my calculations just by investing this money it’ll take a year of growth just to get back to the amount i deposit.

Is this standard? Or are s&s isa’s for people investing larger amounts of money? Should i be using an isa with zero trade fees? Does one such as this exist?

Thanks 🙏🏽

What happens to the tax thresholds if you earn over the £125k limit where you lose your personal allowance?

I’ve just seen a message from HMRC on my tax account that says I owe them for 23/24 tax year. But their calculations don’t make sense to how I thought it worked? Please correct me if I’m wrong?

This is how I THOUGHT it worked:

• 20% tax up to £50,270 (because there is no personal allowance)
• 40% tax on the next £74,869 (up to £125,140)
• 45% tax on the remaining income over £125,140

This is HMRCs calculation in the message they sent me: -20% tax on £37,700

• 40% tax on £87,440
• 45% tax on the remaining.

To me it seems like they’re taxing me 40% on money that should still be within the basic tax band?

According to my calculations, THEY owe ME approx £900. According to their calculations, I owe THEM £1060. Which scenario is correct? I will try to call them tomorrow when the lines open to ask the question.

Can anyone recommend a safe and cost effective method to receive euros and then convert them to gbp? This is about €150k.

Revolut? Key currency?

Any advice gratefully received.

Can my mum, whose state and private pensions have always gone into her joint account with my dad, change her pensions so they go into a bank account in her name only? The reason she is worried it may be an issue is that my dad's in poor health and quickly working through his savings in care costs. I understand it's deprivation of assets for him to give her his money, but can she change her long-standing pensions arrangement with the intention of hastening the point at which he qualifies for social care help? (And retaining a higher proportion of her pension payments for herself?)

For context, my dad's pensions are currently also paid into the same joint account.

I asked this question

I'm looking to withdraw the full amount of my Isa on 212 soon. This is to buy a house. I may be receiving a payment of 30k this tax year. Can I then put 30k in my Isa with 212 as it is flexible? And I will be withdrawing 60k

And this is the response

Your 212 ISAs are flexible, which means you can withdraw any amount and deposit it back without impacting your allowance as long as you do it within the same tax year. However, the ISA allowance for the 2024/25 tax year is £20,000.

Therefore, even though you can withdraw £60,000, you will only be able to deposit a maximum of £20,000 back into your ISA within the same tax year. Please keep this limit in mind when planning your contributions.

It seems the 2 paragraphs contradict itself? I'm curious if I can repay monies into the 212 account above the Isa limit for the year as I'm withdrawing.

Thank you!

My partner passed away earlier this year. It's been devastating to say the least, he was only young. We have a house we jointly owned for over 3 years and we were financially co dependant. We had joint life insurance to cover the cost of our home in the event of one of us passing which has refused payout, leaving me in a financial mess. I've applied to be considered for his death in service benefit. I guess my question is, do I have a chance of getting at least some of the payment. I'm unsure if he did an expression of wish. If he did it probably would have been prior to us meeting and would have had his mum down as a beneficiary. I've sent all documentation across proving financial dependence and have explained that I will loose our house without the money. Any thoughts? We have no children and he has no other dependents.

Hi there,

I'm a self employed GP locum making circa £110-120k gross income per year. I use childcare hours so i'm looking at tax efficient ways to bring my taxable earnings beneath £100k.

I've been looking at some of the BYD electric cars that do 0% finance PCP (https://www.byd.com/uk/purchase/dolphin-offers).

I'm aware that if I got a lease car i'd be able to claim a proportion of the cost as business expenses. However if I buy a BYD car via PCP on 0% finance, can I put the business proportion down as capital expenditure? I would estimate about 80% of mileage is business use.

Thanks

Just turned 20, doing an apprenticeship I have just reached 10,000 in savings

Across a LISA and Cash ISA and savings account.

I'm quite happy given this is all my work, I didn't get any inheritances, my parents don't own property so I help out a bit with bills. This is just from working and putting aside a bit each month.

I thought I would share because maybe it is more realistic for some people - I have seen an influx on posts on social media of people at 22 with like 60k or whatever and sometimes it can get you down.

So no matter what stage your at just being on here alone means your doing alright!

(My next stage is trying to understand how pensions actually work - been paying into my one but I don't fully get it yet)

We currently use First Direct for all our bills and direct debits. I've had enough of adding up all the outgoings for the next 4 weeks to see how much I need to put into the bills account from my wage when I get paid.

My HSBC personal account has a balance after bills feature that adds up the outgoings for a selected time period.

Can anyone recommend another bank that would have this feature or a similar feature so I know how much will be coming out in the next 4 weeks.

I'm a PAYE employee and therefore don't have to fill in a self assessment each year.

However I've been a long term investor in Bitcoin and now looking to take profits with the recent uptrend in price.

I plan to scale out in multiple increments once certain price targets are hit. Therefore should I report each event "using the real time tax service" or is there a time frame in which I can report all of the sales at a singular time?

Hi all! My wife and I are aiming to purchase a house in the next year, we both work in London and earn a combined income of 100k, we have 50k saved and want to buy our first property.

The issue is we have both been accepted onto PhDs at a smaller city next September. We want to get our foot in the door and buy a small flat in the smaller city and move out of London. My question is, would our borrowing power be affected if our current salaries sit at 100k but in 10 months we are about to both be on student stipends? I expect this is something we would need to disclose? We are well funded and affording the mortgage would not be an issue. Any advice appreciated, thank you!

Hi I’ve been looking into universal credit, but it’s not entirely clear cut to me in terms of what criteria for people to be eligible/eligible to x amount

My partner and I rent privately, I work 49 hours per week, she works 21 per week, we have two children. We’ve never been on any benefits apart from the standard child benefit everyone with children get of course. We recently looked into UC on a whim due to our landlord selling up and all potential lets being a little bit outside our current budget/rent cost

So I put my details into a calculator and find that it tells me eligible UC amount weekly is £145!? Near £600 a month just like that? This is surely a mistake or something? I’ve tried 3 different calculators all coming to the near same amount.

Our joint income before tax is roughly 3200 Council tax band A Prospective rent £995/1100 (current £750)

If anyone is good with this kind of thing and knows if it sounds about right, please help me understand it better, the info out there is kind of misleading , thanks, and sorry if this isn’t the right sub for this post!

I've opened a SIPP for the first time and have held off doing this for so long due to the maths (which is probably me being daft). Grateful if someone could let me know if my maths is correct please.

I earn £58.5k a year. I contributed £6,000 to my SIPP. Govt automatically adds £1,500 (i.e., 25%, which undoes 20% tax) to my account which needs to be re-invested.

Total contributed including the basic relief added is now £7,500.

The difference betweent the basic and higher rate tax relief is £1,500 (i.e., £7,500-£6,000 = £1,500) and I write/call HMRC to claim back £1,500 as a cheque. Assuming I quote the gross figures?

Hi all,

I was called in by Police this week for fraud / money laundering intel linked to me. I was with them at the station and It wasn't under caution or anything, however there was no exact proof available that they could show me, no names of banks or anything ..

Can anyone tell me how I can keep myself secure and investigate myself at all? I've got my credit score from ClearScore & MSE Credit Club, which both show my 3 accounts and nothing abnormal.

However, I do have business banks in my name .. although there's no easy way to locate these online. So somewhere there could be a business bank that I'm unaware of in my name being used for these purposes etc.

Is there any advice I can have? Is there a way to see business banks in my name at all? And just any other help please.

Is it worth setting up a trust to put life insurance policy in? I believe the current IHT threshold is above £325k which includes houses. i think its likely by the time I die that my total estate will be higher than £325k. I havent bought life insurance yet so I can buy a policy where payout can be 100k or even millions. To me, it seems like its worth putting life insurance in a trust whether its 100k or millions? I dont think i need a discretionary trust as I know who i want to benefit from the insurance when its time to claim. I would want it to go to my family and any future children i have. Does it sound like getting a trust makes sense for me?

Please can someone let me know the pros and cons as Ive researched and I feel like it benefits everyone as long as your estate will be more than 325k and you know for sure who you want as the beneficiary

I have a UK passport but lived and worked overseas for 30 years. I am a non UK resident, non UK domicile. I have no assets in the UK. If I leave assets (mainly cash) to my siblings who are in the UK, do they A) need to pay IHT on the overseas asset ? B) if they remit the money into UK do they need to pay IHT or any form of tax ? Thanks for any input

So let me preface this by saying that I have had credit cards for more than 10 years across 2 countries. I've never paid a penny on fees or interest, save for annual fees on premium cards once or twice when I was in the US. I'm very responsible with paying them off in full every month (with the exception of some 0% intro offers where I occasionally carry a balance but that's beside the topic).

Today, I was going through my fortnightly YNAB review and cleanup and I was in shock to notice a £12 late payment fee on my Tesco CC. After the first shock, I remembered that when I went on my typical pay-day routine, some technical issue on the Tesco app didn't allow for payment. I tried paying by bank account (my primary bank is Starling which I can't use for this, but the statement was only £10 so I tried using my Natwest, Firstbank and Revolut and they all failed after I approved the payment on their apps). I also tried to pay by debit card and the same thing happened. I then forgot to go back to pay on a different day as I initially planned.

When I went to pay it today, once again Natwest failed to go through. Again, all looks good when I approve the payment and I'm told to go back to the Tesco app, and then nothing happens once I'm back. I managed to pay it with my Firstbank account and got a screen recording of what happens when I try to pay with Natwest as evidence.

I am devastated by this and the impact it might have on my credit report and score. I intend to take out a mortgage for the first time over the next year and I've worked really hard to build my credit history as I've only lived in the UK for 4 years. I have a record of paying the card in full, not just the statement but usually whatever the balance is at the time of payment.

Any recommendations on how to approach this with Tesco? I don't care about the fee that much, I care about the impact on my credit and I want to try to have it dropped. Thank you.

EDIT: The payment was due on 7/11 and I paid it today, so I'm only 4 days late.

Hi Everyone,

I am concerned, single 41 year old male, no kids. I rent a cheap £500 pound a month 1 bedroom house share bills included, its good as I have the house mostly to myself as the others I live with work night shift and go out during the day.

I have logged into my workplace pension with Standard life and its just under 7k, its the Group flexible retirement plan. Every month for the past 2 years I have been adding just under £500 to my pension this includes my company matching what I add.

I have just under 4k in a stocks and shares ISA and cannot add any more until new tax year.

12K in a moneybox LISA that I was told could be used as a pension or first time buyer property. ( Do you think instead of opening a SIPP just keep adding 4k per year to this LISA?)

And 2 other pensions from previous employers totaling 7k which I plan to merge them in my current Standard life employer pension.

Out of my savings I have

£60k in a standard 3.5% high street bank that I gain interest on. (This is potentially my house deposit along with my ISA below)

41k in ISA from a different high street bank (Again this also potentially forms part of my house deposit if I decide to buy)

28k as my emergency fund.

Now my question is, do I rush and buy a property for the sake of not missing the boat?

My living situation. While it suits me now I know this is not a long term solution and would want a place of my own.

At the moment I am not bothered about "putting your stamp on the house" or "blank canvas" or "decorate the walls how you like" none of those things concern me. I do not have any possessions apart from a small wardrobe of clothes and value flexibility. Tomorrow if the landlord decided to kick everyone out I can pack all my possessions in my car and drive off to another town on the same day. I like the flexibility and not having an anchor.

I have considered buying a small house i.e. 200k and renting it but was told I would have to pay tax on the profit and its not worthwhile to rent out just 1 house. Even if the tenant just covered 80% of the mortgage I would be fine with that as the principle of the loan would be reduced and eventually I would own the house.

Or do I open a SIPP with someone like vanguard and add in money per month in my sipp to play catchup as my pension is low? I have paid full NI contributions

Or do I add money in my current standard life pension with my current employer? What happens if you get another job could this be transferred to my private SIPP?

My plan is to try and keep saving, I pay a lot of tax already 65k salary, what would you do in my situation?

In summary my main concerns are:

My age 41 - Property prices only going up, not even stagnating - - I dont want to miss the boat

Or keep living the way I am to save more to drip feed in my pension or lisa or isa

Id appreciate your input. Thank you everyone.

I have recently bought a 3 bedroom terraced house. I have 50k in savings which I gained after. I want to put the 50k in high interest accounts as this money is needed to do work on the house, so some of it needs to be accessible.

I need to buy a new boiler and radiators as the EPC is an F currently and this would bring it up to a D. (maybe 14k?)

I could also have the bathroom updated as it is a 1970s pink one.

Theres possibility to convert the garage to make the downstairs bedroom bigger and add a shower room.

But I need to keep some money back for emergebcy roof repair (flat roof - 14k?)

Other houses that are more modernised sell for 25 to 50k more.

I would like advice on -

a) What kind of account/ISAs to save the 50k in before I have the work done?

b) is it better to have the work done with hopes to sell on or keep it in the bank

c) is it better to pay off mortgage earlier with the 50k or keep it?

I have no children or partner, early 30s, take home around 2k, 540 mortgage a month, 35 year term

My father just informed me that if I get any benefits from my company, like medical insurance, gym benefits, or anything of those sorts then my tax-free amount will be reduced. For example, if I get any benefit worth £500, then my tax-free allowance will become £12,070 from £12,570. I find it hard to believe, I thought that £500 worth of benefits would just get added to the total income and then be taxed.

According to my dad, this happened to him when he took the company car.

Can someone explain how it exactly works? I don't really understand this just yet, and I'm trying to learn more about the tax system in the UK, which I think should be taught in school.

Edit: Thank you all for the explanation, it all makes sense now.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking at buying a new car and the options available to me (bank loan most likely). The car is priced at around 11k (Mazda 3) but I reckon there might be a little wiggle room with that price. I will most likely need a loan for 10k (minus whatever I can get for part-exchange on my Vauxhall Corsa).

The only hesitance I have is that in the next year and a half to two years, my partner and I will be looking at taking out a mortgage. We currently have a 35k deposit, and that will increase to nearly 40k shortly (taking 4k from my stocks & shares ISA, and putting into our shared LISA).

I earn 37k which increases every year (teacher) and my partner earns nearly 30k.

My main question is how much impact you think my loan payments will have on potential mortgage offers. Do you think it's a good idea, or something which I should wait for?

My partner is very supportive, saying that I work very hard and supports me having a nicer car to show for it. With my sensible cap on though - I can't help but worry!