As the owner of a small financial planning practice I have been asking myself how on earth is a small business going to cope with a looming bureaucratic red tape nightmare?
We need more Financial Planners. To be clear, this isn’t some shady attempt at recruitment for my own business. Goodness knows that four of us is enough for now.
11 steps for Life Planning by George Kinder
Written by James
Our democracies could use a dose of Life Planning.
It’s all too easy to become distracted by the hysteria of presidents, prime ministers, politics and performance in this busy start to 2017.
Every year there is a warning out to those doing pension transfers that they need to be extra careful if the client may die within two years of the transfer because of ill health at the point of the transfer.
Reading the columns by Kevin O’Donnell and Martin Bamford in recent weeks got me thinking about what I would want to see and what I would want to achieve in 2017.
Despite having an uncanny knack for making winning predictions (Brexit? Tick. Trump? Tick) I’m not brave enough to stake my reputation or any money on forecasting the future.
Editor: My 10 Wishes for Financial Planning in 2017
It’s traditional at this time of year to make predictions about the coming 12 months. Being somewhat of a contrarian I’m not going to do that.
In the first of her new columns for Financial Planning Today, Chartered Financial Planner Nicola Watts APFS discusses the problem with recruiting Paraplanners with the right skills and experience and explains how fundamental a role she sees them playing in coming years.
It only feels like a moment ago that we entered 2016. Both personally and professionally it's been quite a year.
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As we approach the start of a New Year, Financial Planners will be drawing up their business plans for 2017 and making their resolutions.
Pension tax relief, particularly for higher rate taxpayers, is a hugely used element in the Financial Planner’s arsenal but it’s future may well be in jeopardy along with the Treasury’s commitment to fund pension saving with generous tax benefits.
Showing my age, one of my all time favourite Motown songs is: “The world is like a great big onion” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. I am reminded of this classic at every budget or autumn statement because our pensions world has been growing like an onion – with layer upon layer of complexity added almost every time the Chancellor gets to his feet.
After a couple of enjoyable visits to the Celtic Manor in 2014 and 2015, I didn’t attend the CISI Financial Planning Conference this year. It’s hard to put my finger on the precise reason why.