The untapped global potential of small businesses in the UK is a missed economic opportunity we can no longer afford to ignore. Despite their agility, only 10 per cent of these firms trade internationally. Imagine economic growth if we could double that figure. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has this week revealed its SME…
Q. My wife and I own a buy-to-let in addition to the property (worth more than £1 million) that we live in. What is the most tax-effective way to give the buy-to-let to our child, who is already on the property ladder? Should it be via our will, a gift it in our child’s name…
Q. I am 72 years old, have a small occupational pension, state pension and income from rental property. I hold a sum of money in my pension account that I don’t need at the moment. Am I able to top this up?Sue, Crediton You say you have a sum of money in your pension account…
Investors took fright at reports that the government could raise taxes on UK banks, sending their shares sharply lower. NatWest and Barclays were among the biggest fallers in the FTSE 100, with their shares down 3.3 per cent and 2.7 per cent, respectively, wiping hundreds millions of pounds each from their stock market values. Shares…
The City regulator is cracking down on unregulated share offers after entrepreneurs turned to online services and social media to seek funds from investors. The Financial Conduct Authority has warned unregulated firms that they cannot help to arrange investment deals for private companies without regulatory permissions. Sharing information about a fundraising opportunity privately with a…
Over-optimistic house sellers who end up having to reduce their asking price typically see the property take more than twice as long to sell as those more competitively priced from the outset. The finding comes in analysis from Zoopla, the property website, which said that while all key measures of activity in the housing market…
The energy regulator Ofgem’s price cap will rise 10 per cent on October 1 to £1,717 for the average household, meaning it could make sense to switch to a fixed deal for the first time since 2021. The cap, which is reviewed every three months and is likely to go up again in January, is…
Nvidia, the artificial intelligence chip designer, is expected to announce sales have more than doubled in a year when it reports its highly anticipated quarterly earnings tonight. Analysts are predicting $28.6 billion of sales for the second quarter, a rise of 112 per cent on the same period last year. Operating income is forecast to…
We are coming up to our remortgage and have been offered a five-year rate of 4.17 per cent. We last remortgaged in October 2022 amid the mini-budget mayhem to a rate of 5.87 per cent. So the new rate is cheaper but I know it is not the lowest on the market. To us 4.17…