Reaching your financial goals
Each of us will have different goals in life – raising children and saving for their education, caring for and supporting ageing parents, attaining a desired standard of living for ourselves and our families, or financing our retirement – and these goals will change throughout our lifetime. As your accountants, we can suggest strategies to help you to achieve your objectives at every stage of the journey.
Whatever your own personal goals may be, there are some fundamental strategies that can be applied within the family, and we begin with these.
Tax strategies for you and your family
Reaching your financial goals
Each of us will have different goals in life – raising children and saving for their education, caring for and supporting ageing parents, attaining a desired standard of living for ourselves and our families, or financing our retirement – and these goals will change throughout our lifetime. As your accountants, we can suggest strategies to help you to achieve your objectives at every stage of the journey.
Whatever your own personal goals may be, there are some fundamental strategies that can be applied within the family, and we begin with these.
Using exemptions and allowances
Every individual within your family is taxed separately, and is entitled to his or her own allowances and exemptions.
By using the available personal allowances and gains exemptions, through careful tax planning, we could help you and your family to benefit from more of your wealth. Your tax planning objectives should include taking advantage of tax-free opportunities, keeping marginal tax rates as low as possible, and maintaining a spread between income and capital.
Your financial back-up
Proper contingency planning can help to ensure that your spouse and/or children would be able to cope financially if you died or were incapacitated.
There are several initial steps you can take to ensure that your loved ones would be taken care of, if something were to happen to you. Taking out adequate insurance cover, perhaps with life assurance written into trust for your spouse or children to ensure quick access to funds, would be one sensible measure. However, it is also important to make a Will. We also strongly recommend that you:
- Make a living Will (also called ‘advance decisions’): so that your wishes are clear in the event that, for example, you were to be pronounced clinically dead following an accident
- Execute a lasting power of attorney: so that if you become incapacitated and unable to manage your affairs, whether as a result of an accident or illness, responsibility will pass to a trusted person of your choosing.
Remember to consider similar family protection measures for your spouse as well, in the event that you were both to be simultaneously killed or incapacitated.
It is also useful to make sure that you tell your spouse, your parents, and your business partners where your Will and any related documents are kept. It is your choice whether to discuss with them the contents of the documents, but if you are passing on responsibility for managing your affairs, it might be advisable to talk matters through with them in advance.
- Making the most of tax-free opportunities
- Ensuring that tax rates are as low as possible
- Using savings, capital and other vehicles to give your children a better start in life
- Drafting a Will
- Insuring your life and obtaining disability and critical illness insurance
- Saving for income and investing for capital growth
