Ian Coles,
Surrey
Self-employed forgotten
Regarding your recent article ‘Chancellor extends furlough scheme until October’ (May 12).
Sadly still nothing for the self-employed running limited companies where income is taken as dividends.
To compare tax breaks for this segment as preferential when sole traders have the best deal available to date with supplemented income and the ability to work leaves a big gap that remains a disappointing consequence.
Name and address supplied
Freedoms were no good
Regarding your article ‘McPhail: Pension freedoms was “reckless”’ (May 6).
At last. No less than Tom McPhail (now that he doesn’t have to worry about Hargreaves Lansdown’s business) saying what some of us have been saying since these ‘freedoms’ were first introduced: that for most they were a disaster waiting to happen.
It’s OK if, like George Osborne, you had a pension worth millions, but for normal people it was a disaster waiting to happen.
As I have said on innumerable occasions these freedoms were great for HMRC, advisers, fund managers and providers, but very rarely were they good news for the clients – and nevermore so now.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the claims management companies are salivating at the prospect of extra business as a result of those in drawdown who now find their fund is unable to support their expected income.
It seems likely that now, and in the future, the state will be supporting more retirees.
And of course the more prudent (and better advised) among us will be paying our taxes to help support them.
Harry Katz
HA7 Consulting
HMRC guidance
Regarding your article (May 13). HMRC issues guidance papers apparently only for internal use, but in reality they are available online for all. If anyone follows their guidance (expecting it to be within the law), HMRC can overrule their own guidance if and when it suits them.
Contrary to the tribunal’s statement, it seems ridiculous to expect financial advisers to be cognisant with the interpretive meaning of statutory legal definitions when even the HMRC is not interpreting it correctly in the first place.
Clive Fox
Retired IFA
