TOT Electric cars will be cheaper to run

[Jack Harry Teesdale]

Many OAP's now don't bother with the NHS for elective surgery, (hips, knees, cataracts etc) the waiting lists are years not months, so self funding is becoming essential for a bearble life.

[alan_m]

You don't stop paying taxes when you are a pensioner!

[The Natural Philosopher]

As a pensioner I pay income tax on my earnings from savings, including government pension and any other pension income, I pay council tax and I pay VAT on everything as well as fuel duty and alcohol duty.

The *only* tax I *don't* pay, is national insurance.

[Tim Lamb]

Me too and I've just settled my TV licence!

[tim...]

really

you must have a shed load of savings

at current rates of about 0.8% interest you need a cool million to reach the taxable band

[tim...]

that's a user fee

not a tax

[tim...]

only in tiny amounts

[The Natural Philosopher]

That is why I don't have any savings invested at 0.8%

First of all, you pay tax on your state pension - or at least it uses up the majority of your tax free allowance. After that if you have any private pensions that take your total income over (in my case) £12500 p.a. they are taxed. It's not hard to get a sort of 3-4% return out of almost anything, and with the state pension running at ~£9600 p.a. there's only £2900 of tax free income left

So that is £100k more or less of 'safe' investment - not a cool million.

BUT in my case I have so many capital losses from the dot com crash that I can carry over that I can get money out tax free as long as I am making it via capital gains, so I invest in high alpha growth funds rather than interest paying ones.

Even if you don't have that you still have a further £12,300 worth of capital gains you can use up each year ex of tax.

So it's possible to be pulling about £24,800 out of your savings each year before you pay income or capital gains tax if you avoid investments that pay dividends and go for capital growth.

If you have more than £10,000 on deposit, you need to be talking to a financial adviser, or doing your own research.

Its extremely easy these days to open an online trading account and buy bonds or funds - just avoid Barclays stockbrokers.

But I would in fact not go for interest, but for capital growth, if you have a pot of money that you are not using. You can always sell a bit and get money out for emergencies up to the capital gains limit...and remember if your holding has say doubled, since you bought it you can sell up to 25000 and still only show a 12500 capital gain.

Sticking money in deposit is for people with just a little bit of money and no clue. You need a financial advisor and an accountant if you have more.

[SH]

two points here wotrth mentioning:

1. if your shares or investment trusts or bonda are held within an ISA wrapper, income tax on dividends and CGT on capital gains does not apply......
2. Finding shares with dividends of 3 to 4% is easy and buy..... Finding shares that will achieve capital growth is much harder though!

Agreeed. Only yesterday, I had an email from HBOS saying that the interest rate on my CASH ISA was dropping to 0.01%......

(the CASH ISA was long emptied years ago and its contents stuffed into a S&S ISA.)

It is indeed, and there ars some that are SmartPhone based Apps and with no trading fees, such as FreeTrade.

I find trading on a smartphone based App challenging so I'd prefer to do it on an iPad or even on Windows 11 as it claims to support Android apps.

Yes, but the trick is finding shares that will actually have a capital gain.....

there are fees/commission for FA's and accountants though

[tim...]

oh it's very hard to get 3-4% out of anything that doesn't come with the prospect of possible (absolute terms) capital loss

You may have been lucky with your investment choices and never suffered a sizable capital loss on one (or more) of them

I have.

This make one very risk adverse.

Oh I wish

Not that I'm old enough ATM, but even when I am, I won't be getting that.

I still don't accept that you can find 3% returns from "cash" investments.

Oh so you did lose money in the past!

Not such a perfect investor after all.

not a strategy most people can use.

again

not something most people can arrange their investments to take advantage of

This takes considerable effort, and comes with a large down side risk.

You seem to have forgotten that the point of discussion is your claim, as someone who only had investment income, that you were actually PAYING tax on your investment income

and I said "you must have a shed load of savings to be doing that"

And here you are proving me 100% right.

At no point did I ever query how much income you could receive tax free before paying that tax. Merely that it requires you to have a shed load to invest.

for 10,000 you are having a larf.

I'm quite happy with my risk-reward profile thank you very much

I have more than enough money to satisfy my needs for current expenditure and to supplement my expected pension when it comes to me. I wouldn't have retired early if I couldn't fund that choice.

And nothing that I need to do with any excess. So why chase it at the risk of capital losses?

I never understand why people, in this position, do this. FTAOD I accept that set that I am referring to is a very small set. But that doesn't stop newspaper headlines of "I lost my life savings to some scammer whilst chasing an extra 1% income in my retirement". Look, it's simple. At that point in your life that extra 1% makes f*ck all difference, why take the flipping risk?

Yes yes yes. I been and done all that in the past

my choices have always been poor. And yes, they were researched

So you may then say that I didn't research well enough. And you'd be right. But what's the trick of getting it right? I used all the resources available to a *normal* person and the target audience that you are preaching to here is the set of normal people. So there's no likelihood that, on average, they will get it any better than I did.

And don't say , "pay a manager to do it". I've invested with managed funds in the past as well, and they have all done similarly badly.

Some people get lucky (really lucky) with their investment choices, others not so much

Just because you happen to have been one of the lucky ones (if indeed that is the case, cos it's not yet demonstrated), doesn't mean that you can scale this to the whole of the population - you can't. 50% of them will be lucky, and 50% will be unlucky. It's how investment works (and no that doesn't imply it's a zero sum game)

but why?

what am I going to do with this gain?

How am I going to spend it before I die?

tim

[Tim Lamb]

In message <sc3ijk$fsb$ [e-mail], tim... [e-mail] writes

Pedant:-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

I learnt my lessons. I am trying to pass on the information so that others can benefit. Your view that I am boasting merely reflects your own psyche.

Of course it is.

This is total bollocks.

You simply haven't a clue.

I am. I pulled 30000 out of my SIPP and paid 20% on it

What is a shed load of savings? - you must have simailar if making 0.1% on them is worth even a stamp on an envelope

I am totally serious, and the fact you think that is a joke shows that you have even less understanding of money investment and savings than I thought

Finm, in which case why all the fuss over 0.1%? The mere fact that you are chasing that and seem delighted by it gives the lie to the claim that "I have more than enough money to satisfy my needs"

So why are you?

Of course. finance is in many ways a zero sum game, For every fund that makes money above the general index, there will be one that loses.

If you cant work out which ones are which, then you had better stick to yoir non index linked losses as inflation eats away at your cash pot.

I dunno.

It might at least be a hedge against inflation

[Robin]

You should have stood your ground: the TV licence has been classed a tax since 2006.

[Tim Lamb]

Oh! I'm not here for the arguments:-)

I do hope TNPs ex is not reading how much money he has to invest:-(

[The Natural Philosopher]

she has just as much

[tim...]

I didn't say that you were boasting at at all

I said that your claims were inconsistent

No it's not

most people haven't a clue about how to invest in a capital gains strategy for income.

In particular it requires you investing in something which comes in small enough packets so that the can cost effectively be liquidated a few grand at a time

most vehicles for making capital gains don't look like that

No it's you who hasn't a clue

about the confidence of the main in the street for engaging in such investments.

enough for you to be paying tax on your investments if you have a strategy that allows you to make 20 grand tax free each year

perhaps I do, but that's irrelevant

I haven't the faintest ideas where that came from

I didn't mention either "an extra 0.1%" or having to stick a stamp on an envelope

Oh come on

a financial advisor isn't going to get out of bed for the commission on a managed 10K investment

not unless he thinks it's only a small part of your portfolio

He'll just say "stick it in this bond" based upon which one it is that pays him the most commission.

I wasn't making a fuss over 0.1%

That was someone else

I didn't say that I was.

I'm not

that's not a zero sum game

a zero sum game is where the gains/losses average out to zero gain, not to the general index gain.

Forex is a zero sum game

equities are not

and I repeat

the average person has no possible way of *working out* which ones will make beat the market and which ones will not

Otherwise no-one at all would ever invest in the ones that lose and no-one would lose.

If you happen to consistently be in the ones that gain, it's because you got lucky. Not because you were cleverer (I'll ignore the possibility of being in receipt illegal inside information)

Look at all the "clever" people who followed Neil Woodford. Look at where it got them

And how many researches were there saying that his investments strategy was pants and that his funds should be avoided. No-one not a soul.

I have 20 year old managed funds that haven't beaten inflation

Look at the stock market over the past 20 years

If you invested in 2000, by 2020 it was up 12%, about 0.5% (compound) per year. Big f****ng deal

The guaranteed stellar gains through the 80/90s are history. They have not be consistently repeated since then. If you got lucky and picked trough to peak you will have done well. But you have to be bloody lucky to get that right

[alan_m]

Apart from no NI pensioners pay just as much as everyone else. Not all pensioners are living in poverty! As a pensioner I pay income tax on my pensions, community taxes (rates or what ever the name is this week) VAT, fuel tax, alcohol tax etc. etc.

[Dave Plowman (News]

You mean exactly like those younger than working age too?

[Dave Plowman (News]

You have to remember many are jealous of those sensible enough to select a career that included a decent pension as part of the remuneration. And of course voted for a government who did their level best to get rid of occupational pensions via any means possible.

[Fredxx]

That's called investing in the younger generation to provide wealth later. Return on investment capital is very good.

I guess investment, and return on investments, are dirty words / concepts in socialism?