It has been announced that Gordon Brown may well have gone against the advice of colleagues when he decided to reduce the advantageous tax treatment of pension funds. In his first budget in 1997 the chancellor announced plans to withdraw tax relief from pension scheme income, thereby increase the outflow of funds from pension schemes. What difference has this really made?
It has today been confirmed that TJX, the parent company of the TK Maxx retail brand of cut price designer wear, have been the subject of a sustained period of attack by hackers. It has been announced that details of at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards have been stolen over a 16 month period from July 2005.
The stolen information includes details of transactions as far back as December 2002, which is obviously causing great concern to current and historic customers of the group.
Many UK workers will be waking up to a potential nasty surprise on Friday morning with news that there has been a problem with the UK’s BACS system (an abbreviation for Bankers Automated Clearing Services). This is the service which allows wages and other payments to be transferred from third parties, directly into the recipients personal bank account.
After the debacle of the Farepak collapse last year, the government have announced the results of a formal review into the Christmas savings industry. The review was instigated as 150,000 Farepak customers lost an average of £400 each in last years high profile collapse. So why the change?
In effect all Christmas saving scheme companies will need to separate customer money from company money, thereby safe guarding the money saved up by customers throughout the year, In last years collapse of Farepak, customers funds were not ring fenced and were used to fund the company’s expansion into other areas of business. Under the new rules, customer savings will be returned in the event of a collpase of the savings Company.
While it has taken two years for the scheme to receive the green light for admission to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), the 6,228 pensioners in the former MG Rover scheme will have their pensions protected for the future. Even though the pension scheme itself was declared insolvent when the parent company went under in 2005, the industry funded PPF has taken on all liabilities.
A warning about the housing market? Or a change in trend to rented accommodation? Whatever the reason, 2006 witnessed the first fall in the number of owner occupied homes in the England since records began in 1939. So what is happening?
Official figures show that there were 14.62 million owner occupied homes in England which was a fall of some 25,000 from 2005. While not a large fall, this is the first time that the number of owner occupied homes has fallen for nearly 70 years.
