Blogs & News

The US Internal Revenue Service has started action to revoke the citizenship or residence rights of at least 260,000 US individuals due to significant tax debts, according to law firm Dickinson Wright

The tax collector and the State Department have begun the enforcement of an existing law that enables them to deny passport applications or revoke existing passports due to outstanding claims.

The IRS has stated it plans to use the power against US citizens who owe more than $51,000 in taxes and penalties.

It has been revealed that the UK has £20 billion in unclaimed pensions, research from the independent PPI has revealed, adding pressure on the government to act over the "pensions dashboard".

The PPI surveyed half of firms in the private defined contribution (DC) pension market, looking at 12 large insurers, and found 800,000 lost pensions worth around £9.7 billion.

Using this research on half the market, the PPI estimated there are 1.6 million lost, or unclaimed, pots in the UK today worth £19.4 billion.

Britain’s so-called “requirement to correct” (RTC) legislation came into force on 30 September 2018.

The new law requires taxpayers to declare any foreign assets that could affect their UK income tax, capital gains tax or inheritance tax.

Investors who notified HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) before the deadline were granted 90 days to disclose any offshore assets and pay the relevant tax due.

Australia, Switzerland and Singapore are among the countries that have signed up to let tax authorities share information internationally.

Any individuals who have paid the incorrect amount of tax on overseas income in previous years must have corrected their tax returns by the deadline, or the potential fine will double to 200% of tax owed.

Experts have warned of undersaving for retirement as the latest figures predict increasing numbers of newborns will live to 100 years old.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures found life expectancy was projected to increase, albeit at a slower rate, with an extra 8.6m people aged above 65 in half a century’s time - a demographic shift expected to put increasing pressure on already struggling care provision.

According to the figures 22.6 per cent of newborn boys and 28.3 per cent of newborn girls will live to 100 years old.

The data found a 65 year-old could expect to spend around half of their remaining life expectancy in good health, but the amount of time spent in poor health will increase as life expectancy rises.

Officer Shawn DePasquale was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer just weeks after joining the Rollinsford, New Hampshire police force.

At just 26-years-old Mr DePasquale said he “didn’t expect” to be handed a stage-four cancer diagnosis at his age, which reportedly came soon after starting a new job.

Rollinsford Officer Shawn DePasquale joined the department in December 2017 shortly before he unexpectedly learned he had colon cancer.

“I mean I'm 26, didn’t expect to come down with this,” DePasquale said. “You hear you have stage four cancer and immediately everything just fades out.”

The 2018 World Cup kicked off and is expected to be one of the most watched sporting events in the world.

What is unexpected are the results and performances of some of the top teams; four of the top five pre-tournament favourites failed to win their first match and continue to perform unconvincingly so far.

It may not be immediately obvious, but the role of a football manager offers a topical analogy for the skills required and challenges faced by an investment manager.

Bitcoin is the world’s most popular digital currency. having drawn millions of investors across the world, its value rocketed to nearly us$20,000 at the end of 2017, although its value has since dropped dramatically to c.$7,000 (at the time of writing in April 2018). 

Bitcoin is the best known of the 1,800-odd cryptocurrencies.

Its meteoric rise has drawn many investors, with some believing that the underlying blockchain technology (blockchain is a digital ledger in which transactions made in cryptocurrencies are recorded chronologically and publicly) could become one of the most powerful tools ever given to civilisation. But do investors understand the risks and does the underlying technology even matter ?

The following article written by Michel Perera CIO of CGWM outlines their views.