Month: October 2019

There have been several changes relating to Capital Gains Tax (CGT) over the past few years. The coming years are set to bring more. Here’s our summary of some of the more important changes coming that might be coming into effect from April 2020. 

If you are thinking about selling a residential property in the next year or two, you need to know about proposed changes to the capital gains tax rules for disposals from April 6th 2020. 

If you only own one property and have always lived there, you should not be affected. However, if you own more than one property or you moved out of your only property for a period of time, you might face a capital gains tax bill. 

The two main changes you should be aware of are: 

Final period exemption 

The last period of ownership counting towards private residence relief will be reduced from 18 months to just nine. Currently, the final period exemption allows individuals a period of grace to sell their home after they have moved out. However, the government feels that individuals with multiple residences have been taking advantage, hence the reduction.   

Lettings relief

Lettings relief is set to be removed, unless you live in the property with the tenant. For UK property, HMRC must be notified and tax paid 30 days after completion rather than the January following the end of the tax year in which the disposal took place. Failure to pay on time will result in HMRC imposing interest and potential penalties. 

With no transitional measures in place, this means that higher-rate taxpayers previously expecting to benefit from the maximum potential relief of £40,000 could be lumped with £11,200 extra tax overnight. 

Here’s an example of how the new taxes could influence a sale:

Steve, a higher rate taxpayer, bought a flat in April 2009 for £100,000. He lived there for 6 years until April 2015 before moving out to live with his partner. He let the flat until 2020 when he sold it for £300,000. The sale was completed on 4th June 2020. 

If the contracts were to be exchanged before the April 2020 changes, a CGT of £6,618 would be due. However, after the deadline a CGT of £21,636 would be due, payable seven months earlier – this is due to there being a lower period of private residence relief and a lack of lettings relief. 

The next steps

The two above changes are set to be enacted as part of the 2020 Finance Act and at the moment are not definite. The consultation to these steps closed on 5th September 2019. Assuming that draft provisions reach the Finance Bill 2019-20, we will have to see if any changes are made to either after it is debated in Parliament. 

This may seem a surprising suggestion. Surely most people are eagerly looking forward to early retirement, not thinking about postponing it? More time to travel the world, spend on the golf course or help out with the grandchildren sounds an enticing prospect rather than more years at work.

But times have changed significantly since the state old age pension was first introduced in 1909. In those days, it was paid to those aged 70 or more and people weren’t expected to live many years beyond that.           

Nowadays, the state pension can be taken at 65 (66 next year), although this does depend on gender and date of birth. Yet, at the same time, life expectancy has increased. People live on average at least another fifteen years beyond their three score years and ten. 

Back in 1948, a 65-year-old would expect to take their pension for about 13.5 years, equating to 23% of their adult life. This has risen steadily. Figures in 2017 showed that a 65-year-old would expect to live for another 22.8 years, or 33.6% of their adult life.

A significant number of people even live to 100 these days. So much so that the Queen has had to expand her centenarian letter writing team to cope with the number of people requiring a 100th birthday message from the Palace.       

According to the Office of National Statistics, the number of centenarians in the UK has increased by 85% over the last 15 years.This trend is set to continue so that by 2080 it is anticipated there will be over 21,000.

In recognition of the fact that people are living longer and spending a larger proportion of their adult life in retirement, a government review will consider increasing the state pension age to 68 between 2037 and 2039.  

Currently, if someone retires at 65 and lives to 100 it makes for a long retirement. Not only is it  expensive for the state to maintain, the individual is worried about outliving their finances rather than being able to get on and enjoy their retirement. The state pension was not designed to support a long period of limbo. 

Against such a backdrop, it makes sense for some individuals, if they are fit, healthy and capable, to consider working beyond their pension age. There is no longer any default retirement age at 65, so it is perfectly possible to do this.  

The older generation also have a great deal to contribute to an employer in terms of experience and commitment. In addition, it’s well known that going to work each day gives some people a reason to get up in the morning and also to keep young. There are many unfortunate cases where someone has worked all their life, looking forward to their retirement, only to fall seriously ill or die the moment they stop work.    

The number of 70 year olds in full or part-time employment has been steadily increasing year on year for the past decade, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. This hit a peak of 497,946 in the first quarter of 2019, an increase of 135% since 2009. 

So rather than just worry about whether you will have enough for your retirement, maybe it makes sense to keep working a little bit longer.  

As you grow older, one of the things you might be most concerned about is the entire value of your home disappearing on paying care home fees.

Care from the NHS is free, but if you need social care because you are physically or mentally frail, you will have to pay for it yourself.

Over recent years, fees for care homes have risen rapidly. Research has found that Britons pay £10.9 bn of their own money into privately funded care a year. According to market intelligence provider, LaingBuisson, the average bill was £844 a week in 2018, compared with £445 a week in 1998.

If you have more than £23,500 in property, savings and investments, you will have to pay the full cost of care yourself during your lifetime and, if necessary, from your estate after you have died. This may not leave much for your family to inherit. Help from the local authority is available but it is strictly means tested, which results in very few people qualifying for financial help. (The value of your home is not considered in your means test if you or your spouse or a dependant is living there).   

To avoid paying for their social care in the future, some people take steps to get rid of all their assets but this may mean they could end up in a less luxurious care home than they had hoped for. 

Is using a trust an option?        

You may have heard of people protecting the value of their assets and property by putting them into a trust. If this is done before they go into care, the home is not part of their capital and they cannot be required to use it to fund their care fees. Great care needs to be taken, however, around the timing of this.The Local Authority can view such a step as ‘deprivation of assets’ if they feel the intention is to avoid paying care fees and refuse funding as a result.

If you are considering using a trust, it is vital to get professional advice from a solicitor and make sure it is suitable for your individual circumstances. In some cases, there might not have been much benefit. Your income might have been enough to pay most or all of your care fees anyway. The level of your other capital may have been enough to meet the shortfall between your income and the fees for the length of your stay in care.

There were plans for the government to bring in a cap of £72,000 for care home costs in 2020, but these have been scrapped. In the recent Spending Review, an additional £1 billion for adult and children’s social care was announced by Sajid Javid, although it is yet to be seen what that will mean in practice.