More than half of British adults don't have a will, putting their heirs at risk of paying hefty legal bills to untangle estates and worringly more than a fifth of over 65s have not written a will!!

Research by Standard Life found that nearly two-thirds (60pc) of 35 to 44-year-olds didn't have a will, while two-fifths (38pc) of 45 to 54-year-olds, a third (32pc) of 55 to 64-year-olds and more than a fifth (22pc) of over 65s were without a will.

Read our article about the financial consequences of dying without leaving an up to date and valid Will here http://www.retirementis.co.uk/news-a-resources/21-wills-for-the-willing

Read full article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/8473497/Half-of-population-has-no-will.html

• Inheritance tax is Britain’s second biggest tax waste area making up 10% of the overall tax wasted in the UK
• So called ’death tax’ makes it into the top five of taxes Brits most want to abolish
• Almost nine out of ten people have done nothing in the past 12 months to reduce the amount of tax they pay

Unbiased.co.uk’s annual Tax Action Report reveals that UK taxpayers will waste nearly £1.3 billion this year due to poor inheritance tax (IHT) planning.  This tax wastage is only set to increase further in the future after the chancellor announced in 2010 that the threshold would remain frozen for four years at £325,000 rather than rising in line with inflation.

Inflation is a deadly enemy for pensioners, who often have fixed incomes or rely on interest from savings to make ends meet. So there is no surprise that the fall in the CPI (consumer price index) inflation rate to 4% announced yesterday (12 April 2011), will not have them jumping for joy.

At Retirement and Investment Solutions we are always striving to improve our website.

To help with all your tax queries please download our 2011/12 Tax table here

Just a quick note to keep everyone up to date on the new ISA allowance, which in our opinion is not the easiest of numbers to remember!

The new 2011/2012 cash ISA limit is £5,340 and the limit for a Stocks & Shares ISA is £10,680.  You can invest up to £10,680 into a stocks a shares ISA if you don't take the cash ISA allowance.

Both Cash ISAs and Stocks & Shares ISAs are open to anyone over 18, resident and ordinarily resident in the UK. Anyone over 16 can have a cash ISA.

It has been over a year since Aviva started tracking the UK retirees through it's Real Retirement Report series.  The fifth report provides not only the opportunity to do a quarterly analysis of the fears and concerns of the over 55's but also looks at the annual picture from these three distinctive ages of retirement.

I think the report does highlight some important concerns and financial planning considerations for the older generation, but it is important to remember that individual circumstance vary somewhat.

As advisers dedicted to the over 50's I think most of our clients have found their experiences of the recession and subsequent economic environment less problematic than the figures in this report suggest - but is that just a case of what good financial planning can achieve??

Read the full report here ://www.retirementis.co.uk/images/stories/pdfs/090311_Aviva_Real_Retirement_Report_issue_five_March_2011.pdf

Am pleased to confirm our new edition of the 7 Essential Steps for Everyone facing Retirement is now availble to download.

Grab your copy here http://www.retirementis.co.uk/contact-us/free-guides-request

There were no surprises in the Budget and very little of anything for the majority of individuals to get excited about.

The usual suspects – alcohol and tobacco – got hammered but that had already been announced previously.

Fuel duty down by 1p and an inflation rise in fuel prices in April 2011 has now been put back to 2012 – when you’re paying £1.40 for a litre of diesel a 1p reduction is nothing to get excited about.

Previously announced increases in Personal Allowances were confirmed as was the reduction in the band of income on which you pay basic rate Income Tax – if you’re under 65 and your income is less than £42,775 you will pay a little less tax than last year (about £200).

Inheritance Tax reduced (or has it) – a new Inheritance Tax rate of 36% will be introduced for estates where a minimum of 10% of the net estate is left to a registered charity. The current Inheritance Tax rate is 40% so this is a welcome reduction you might think.

However, as is often the case, nothing is as it seems – for example, if you leave a taxable estate of £100,000 and leave £10,000 of it to charity the new Inheritance Tax rate of 36% would be applied to the remaining £90,000 meaning that your beneficiaries receive a net amount of £57,600

Had you left to whole £100,000 to your beneficiaries and nothing to charity the Inheritance Tax rate might be higher at 40% but they are still left with a net amount of £60,000.  

Read out full Budget Special here

Events such as Friday's devastating earthquake in Japan put many things into perspective and at a time of great human tragedy our thoughts are with those that have been, and continue to be, affected.

The earthquake, which was the sixth strongest on record (measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale), and the resulting tsunami caused devastation to a vast area in the rural north east of Japan. Whilst aftershocks are still being experienced, the waters have receded and the recovery process has now begun however, the risks around the nuclear plants are still unfolding. At the time of writing, it was confirmed by the Japanese government that the radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had reached harmful levels following a third blast which appeared to have damaged one of the reactor’s containment systems.

We have all been horrified this week at the images from Japan following the huge earthquake and subsequent Tsunami. Our thoughts go out too all those affected by this disaster and we can only hope that things do not get much worse for them with the problems they are having with their nuclear reactors.

We were having a discussion about the alarming regularity with which we hear about these types of things. Natural disasters, wars, unrest in the Middle East. Are things really so different now or are we truly in the age of information overload. With 24 hour rolling news we are subject to the full wonder and horror of the world and sometimes it feels as if it could be too much to bear. So many people have access to cameras on mobile phones, the internet, and sites like Facebook and Twitter that it could be said that everybody is now a journalist. In years gone by it could days or even weeks for the full picture to emerge following a disaster like the one we have just witnessed in Japan. And yet within hours we were able to see graphic images of the unfolding horror from amateur sources.

Having recently had to organise a funeral, I have come to the decision that it should be compulsory for everyone to prepare a Wish List for their funeral, whilst they are still alive.

Losing someone close is distressing enough, but to have to sit in front of the funeral director to chose a coffin, for example, makes it so much harder.   They have a brochure from which you can choose anything from an eco friendly coffin to the more traditional coffin and anything in between and beyond (see www.crazycoffins.co.uk).

Pension experts have branded the European Court of Justice gender ruling a “seismic event” that is set to reshape the retirement landscape.

The ECJ published its ruling today in the test case brought by Test-Achats, who claimed it was gender discrimination to charge men and women differently for products such as annuities and life insurance.

The ruling will not be applied until the end of next year but will affect car insurance, life insurance, private medical insurance and pension schemes, as well as the cost of buying an annuity.

Pat blogged late last year about the offer more options campaign. This campaign centres around the lack of clarity regarding the options available at the time people come to retire.

We at Retirement and Investment Solutions passionately believe that everybody should seek advice at retirement. Far too many people simply take the options provided to them by their existing provider unaware that they could potentially increase the level of income or flexibility in retirement.

Martin Lewis – the renowned 'Money Saving Expert' – got the pensions industry experts up in arms after a blatant gaffe on ITV’s Daybreak programme.

The backlash, notably on Twitter, was after Mr Lewis claimed pension pots have to be converted to an annuity in retirement. 

Daybreak presenter Adrian Chiles asked whether 'you can’t just draw the money out' of a pension when you get to retirement.

Lewis replied: 'You can't draw the money, it's a payment each year for life.' As that’s how easy ii is to land yourself in hot water if you don’t cover all the facts!

Thousands of elderly people are paying nursing home fees that should be covered by the NHS.

At the heart of this problem is whether those going into a nursing home qualify for NHS “continuing care”. Unlike care provided by the local authority, this is not means tested, so those qualifying should get their care bills paid in full by the NHS, regardless of whether or not they are home owners.

This can make a huge financial difference to many families. Those who don’t qualify for continuing care face stringent means tests. Anyone with assets of more than £23,250, which in most cases will include the value of the family home, will have to pay the lion’s share of their care costs.

At this time of year with many of us having just filed our tax returns, it seem the scammers have again reacted by issuing millions of fake HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) emails titled Tax Rebate or Tax Refund New Message alert!

The emails offer a hyper link to claim your “tax rebate” and the link takes you through to a fake HMRC website where bank or credit card details are requested.

This is not an encouragement or recommendation to buy gold (personally I don’t even think gold’s a very good investment) but it does have at least one big attraction over almost every other financial investment – you can see it, you can touch it, you can carry it from one place to another, you can show it off to your friends.

I’m not talking about gold jewellery.

No, I’m talking about pure gold that you can handle.

A limited addition inflation- linked savings bond has just been launched by Birmingham Midshires, it promises to pay an interest rate of the Retail Prices Index (RPI) – currently 4.8pc – plus 0.25 percentage points, for five years.

You may recall from our previous news article inflation linked offerings from NS&I and National Counties Building Society were met with such high demand, that they sold out in a matter of days!

So with Mervyn King warning households that inflation is set to rise to 5pc this year I would expect demand for the BM Savings bond to be just as high. The bank would not reveal how much it intended to take in but it has warned that it could withdraw the product at any time.

You may have read recently that up to two million workers a year who faithfully paid their tax bills have not been matched with their NI contributions – another shocking scandal to involve Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs - which is still reeling from last year's crisis that left millions paying the wrong amount in tax.

So what has gone wrong?

Millions of workers who have paid National Insurance have not been awarded the National Insurance credit for that year. As a result, they risk losing part of their state pension.

Every year of missing NI will reduce the basic state pension by £3.25 a week. For instance, if five years are missing this will reduce the pension by £16.25 a week.

Christmas and New Year was a complete break from our normal celebrations and a very pleasant change it made.

Our Son came over from Greece in time to hit the shops for all the goodies that are not available (or are too expensive) where he lives and we volunteered to drive him and a car load of presents and supplies back to Greece, via an overnight Ferry from Italy.

The Sat Nav did a sterling job on the way down and as we had a limited time in which to catch the ferry in Italy we made use of the excellent Toll Roads in France.

With Profits are once again under fire after a survey by Money Management, the financial magazine, confirmed dwindling returns.

Its survey showed that over 10 years the average with-profits bond has produced an annual return of just 1.7pc. Significantly less than the 8.2pc average return recorded in 2003, when Money Management first started carrying out the survey.

To make matter worse the vast majority of insurers still levied exit penalties on customers who cash in their bonds. Just nine of the 25 companies surveyed don't currently impose these penalties - known as market value reductions (MVRs).

Yet again changes to State pensions have been introduced without anybody being aware but the difference is this time that it’s good news for some.

Most people are probably aware that a married woman who hasn’t made sufficient National Contributions herself can still qualify for a State pension based on her husband’s National Insurance contributions.

This pension is known as the Dependent’s Additional pension and for 2010 it is £58.50 per week.

Until recently the problem was that she couldn’t begin to receive this until her husband claimed his pension from the State – so she couldn’t claim it if her husband was under 65 or if he had deferred taking his State pension.

Well the seasonable/unseasonable weather seems to have brought the country to a standstill and given the journalists a fresh opportunity to blanket the country with a dusting of clichés!

There are those who are have been genuinely delayed and have the potential to miss out this Christmas time. This is unfortunate as no-one wants to have change their plans at the last moment.

Not sure if anyone read The Times at the weekend but I would like to draw your attention to an excellent article published on Saturday 4th December. The article focuses on the changing retirement market and related issues – a key summary is below but I’ve attached the full article for your to read – some interesting stuff.

HM Treasury has, today, published a summary of the responses to the Consultation paper on removing the requirement to annuitise by age 75, together with draft legislation for further consultation, defining more clearly and with greater certainty the proposed rules. Below is our interpretation of the changes, which are correct as at 9 December 2010. The key changes: Most of the changes below will take effect from 6th April 2011, and include, in brief: