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Money Box: IHT threshold, Savings safety limit, Tax credits for new claimants

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04/07/2015

IHT threshold, Savings safety limit, Tax credits for new claimants

BBC Radio 4 - Money Box, IHT threshold, Savings safety limit, Tax credits for new claimants

New £1m IHT threshold, savings safety limit cut and ending tax credits for new claimants.

Topics include the new £1m IHT threshold, a cut to the savings safety limit, a call to end tax credits for new claimants, landlord tax breaks and PPI developments.

On Money Box with Paul Lewis:

The amount of savings that are protected if a bank goes bust is to be cut by £10,000. The Prudential Regulatory Authority has announced that the current £85,000 limit will fall to £75,000 from 1 January 2016. The PRA blames the falling euro for the cut. But there's good news too for some savers with temporary higher balances. There will be FSCS protection on balances up to £1mn for up to six months. Anna Bowes, Savings Champion, explains the changes.


This week the Bank of England revealed that buy to let homes now account for nearly one in seven mortgages and about one in five new loans and warned the sector could pose a risk for financial stability. Buy to let landlords can claim the interest on their mortgage as a business expense and offset it against any profit they make before tax is levied. Is it just a normal business expense that must be preserved? Or is it time to look at this tax relief again? Housing experts Professor Michael Ball and economist Angus Hanton, debate the issues.

Chancellor George Osborne's Budget is to confirm the end of inheritance tax on family homes worth up to £1m. He is expected to tell MPs on Wednesday that the threshold at which the tax is levied will rise for couples from £650,000 after April 2017.


The Supreme Court has decided that if a customer is not told fully about the amount of commission earned on an insurance product and who receives it then that could create what is called an 'unfair relationship' between the insurer and the client and that could mean the whole contract was void. This wide ranging judgement over a PPI case was announced on 12 November. But the FCA has still not decided exactly how this court decision will be implemented - either for current sales or for PPI compensation. Money Box unpicks what all this might mean.


Labour MP Frank Field explains to Money Box his plans to phase out the £30 billion a year tax credit scheme completely. Field wants the government to end what he calls the "welfare dependency of large numbers of employers" who pay low wages and then "dip into taxpayers' pockets" to make those wages up to a decent level. But he does think that tax credits could be stopped now for new claimants and phased out by 2020 for existing ones, replacing their need for benefits with higher pay.

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