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Council tax - news for householders not too bad this year
Personal finance news with Saga Magazine's Paul Lewis:
Across England in the past year the average council tax rise was 4%, the lowest since 1994. In Wales it rose by 3.9%. But that still means council tax in England has doubled since 1997 - and risen nearly two and half times since it began in 1993
The state pension has risen much more slowly. In 1993/94 it took 10 weeks' pension to pay a year's tax. Today it takes 15 weeks' pension. In Wales, the tax is about 75% of the level in England and rises at about the same rate. In Scotland, the tax has been frozen in 2008/09 everywhere except Stirling, where it has fallen slightly.
The Scottish Government is consulting on scrapping the tax and replacing it with an extra 3p on income tax. It says that would raise as much money and leave 90% of households better off. However, tax experts have said that the arithmetic does not add up.
Cash is back
As the credit crunch snaps at our ankles, Britain's shopkeepers report that we are turning back to old-fashioned cash to make the most of our purchases. Since the first Barclaycard in 1966, cash has given way year by year to plastic. But the British Retail Consortium reports that cash was used for 60% of all transactions in shops last year, compared with 54% the year before, and accounts for 34% of retail spending, up slightly on the previous year's 32%. The consortium's annual survey collects data from more than 17,000 shops of all sizes.
Figures from APACS – which runs the 'plumbing' our money travels through – show that last year we made 2,750,000,000 visits to cash machines and took out £180,000,000,000.
The average withdrawal is £65, but it's just five days before we're back to draw more. Add on the cash we get from other places and every adult is spending a £20 note every day of the year. Not bad for a 2,600-year-old invention.
Phishing
Beware: online fraud is up again this year
More and more of us bank online. But as we do there are more and more crooks trying to get their hooks into our money in a practice called 'phishing', because they send us bait and when we bite they haul in our cash.
The bait is an email which looks as if it is from your bank. You are asked to click on a link and if you do so you will be asked to type in your account details and your login, password and details. The crooks, who are probably overseas, then raid your account.
Attacks doubled in 2007 and are up again this year – three times as many in the first quarter of 2008 as there were two years ago. There are simple rules to keep your money safe:
First, always use anti-virus and firewall software. Second, never click on a link in an email which seems to be from a bank. Always contact your bank using its own website in the normal way. Third, never open an attachment with an email from anyone unless you trust them and are expecting it. Attachments can contain 'spy' software. Fourth, when you access your bank account, make sure there is an image of a locked padlock or an unbroken key in the bottom right of your browser and check the web address begins https: not http:.
Spanish practices
If you sold a property in Spain between 2004 and 2006 you could be owed a refund
Spanish lawyers are attempting to track down more than 4,000 British people who may have been charged too much tax when they sold a Spanish home.
The Spanish government charges capital gains tax on the profits made from selling property. Spanish nationals pay 15% while non-residents pay a hefty 35% tax. However, the European Commission has recently ruled that Spain cannot charge different rates of tax to EU nationals. So Brits and other non-Spaniards from within the EU who have been clobbered with a 35% tax can claim back the difference.
Anyone who sold a home in Spain between June 2004 and December 2006 could be in line for a refund. Claims more than four years old are disallowed by Spanish law and from January 2007 the rules were changed to bring the rates into line. Around 4,500 British people could be owed an average of £14,000 each.
If you sold your property in 2004 act quickly before your claim is out of time. See www.spanishtaxreclaim.co.uk
* Paul Lewis is the editor of Saga Magazine's Money News section and the presenter of BBC Radio 4's Moneybox. This article first appeared in the June 2008 edition of Saga Magazine. Paul's opinions are his own and for general information only. Always seek independent financial advice.
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