In this week’s Investor’s Daily our authors covered the key topics of the week.
Among them, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement.
You can read our analysis below.
The bottom line: If there’s one thing we know politicians like, it’s taxing and spending. And that’s set to continue. As the Telegraph reports:
Rachel Reeves is plotting a tax raid on savers by making it easier for HMRC to dock workers’ pay.
The Treasury is concerned that savers are failing to pay the tax they owe on interest. New proposals will make it easier for the taxman to take this money directly from pay packets.
Consultation documents published after Wednesday’s Spring Statement reveal HMRC could be given powers to demand more personal information from banks about their savers.
This could include National Insurance numbers that would make it easier for HMRC to match taxpayers to the money in their savings accounts.
Ms Reeves is already plotting a revamp of cash Isas that could cut the tax-free allowance to just a fifth of what it is currently, as part of a government push to funnel more money into shares.
That just about says it all. Savers who are saving for their retirement… just aren’t paying their “fair share” of tax. So, His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs is coming for its cut.
The last paragraph of the quote shows the depths of government desperation to force you to boost the markets… whether you really want to or not.
But it’s not just the government directly. As Wednesday’s Financial Times noted:
The head of the financial watchdog has said too many young people invest in crypto assets such as bitcoin instead of equities or bonds, adding it was an example of the problems its new strategy is designed to tackle.
We’re baffled why any government body should be in the business of financial planning. Who are the bureaucrats to say that folks should invest more in stocks or bonds today than they should in cryptos?
It’s another example of nanny-statism. The government doesn’t trust you to spend your own income in the way you choose, so it taxes you so the government can spend it on things it decrees you should have.
But not only doesn’t it trust you to take care of your wages, even what it lets you have – your after-tax pay – it insists on telling you what to do with it.
Well, thanks for the advice. But we figure our readers can make up their own minds what to do with their money… where to spend it, and where to invest it.
We trust you to make the best decisions for you. It’s a shame the government doesn’t show the same level of trust.
Links to last week’s essays below.
Hope you’re having a great weekend.
Cheers,
Kris Sayce
Publisher, Southbank Investment Research
What you missed this week…
The geography of inflation
Prices rise and fall for a great many reasons but there is only one cause of a general, ongoing rise in prices: an increase in the money supply. A look at the geography of Renaissance Europe’s great inflation illustrates the point. Read more here…
Britain’s South Sea Windfall
Forty-three years ago this week, Argentina began its invasion of the Falkland Islands, or Malvinas, as they are known to the Argentines. The small Royal Marines force on the islands received only a day’s warning that a large amphibious assault force was closing in. They did what they could to prepare, mounting a brief defence – but the situation was hopeless. Read more here…
Reeves’ Spring Confession
Today, Chancellor Rachel Reeves presents her Spring Statement on government finances. It might read more like a confession of sorts, if not a full admission of guilt. Why? Well, the nation’s coffers are in nowhere near the state she had predicted when she presented her “Halloween” budget at the end of October. Read more here…
A final warning
As the chancellor made clear in her Spring Statement yesterday, not all is well on this Sceptred Isle. Public finances are deteriorating at an alarming rate. That has partly to do with the rising cost of borrowing. The bond market vigilantes are on the march, pushing up yields. Read more here…
The robot revolution is here, now
Since the Volkering family moved house, we’ve been going through the process of moving furniture into the right spots, reassembling things, and then putting the various pictures and artwork on the walls. It was while doing that last task that I had a hallelujah moment. Read more here…
