From April 6, savers will no longer have tax deducted before they are paid interest by a bank or building society. This is part of the Chancellor’s move to give savers a new £1,000 tax-free allowance (£500 for higher-rate taxpayers). But a report in the Daily Mail suggests that HM Revenue & Customs taxman is making huge errors in calculating how much interest savers are earning.
The Telegraph reports that BT Openreach is missing 1,000 appointments a week. In a series of customer service failures, it is claimed that the company – which is responsible for managing Britain’s infrastructure of ducts, poles and cables connecting homes and businesses to the internet – wastes £1 billion a year on botched broadband installations. It has been suggested that 60 per cent of Openreach broadband installations go wrong the first time.
Meanwhile, a new study has found that central heating and double glazing top UK home-buyers’ list of ‘must-have’ property features. In findings that will do little to cheer BT, house-hunters opt for good, reliable broadband signal over highly-rated schools; off-road parking over a garage and a living room big enough for a large flat screen telly over period features. According to Gocompare.com Mortgages, only 15 per cent of buyers rated access to good local schools as an essential factor in purchasing a new home.
Gocompare.com’s mortgages spokesperson, Matt Sanders, said: ‘From our research it’s clear that today’s potential home-buyers are putting practical concerns ahead of aesthetics. They are looking for warm, cosy properties, which are energy efficient and well connected to modern amenities rather than ones that are full of character.’
As for people with more than one property, The Times reports today that plans to reduce capital gains tax have been examined by Treasury officials as ministers look at ways to encourage people to sell their second homes. The Chancellor has suggested that he is keen to cut the tax after the Liberal Democrats forced him to raise it during coalition negotiations in 2010.
And in Budget-related news, research from The Share Centre shows that nearly one in five people are planning to to withdraw their pensions nest egg and drip-feed it into an ISA once they turn 55. Since new pensions freedoms were introduced last year, giving retirees the opportunity to access cash tied up in a pension as opposed to purchasing an annuity, ISA inflows have increased by 9.2 per cent.
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