Feeding frenzy
A HAPPY new tax year to all my readers. The old year ends this week. New Year's Day is Monday, and the festivities are more frenzied than usual — because of the elec- tion and the unfriendly new rules which might follow it. Those rules are the selling- point of Personal Equity Plan promoters. Buy your PEP ration for the old year, they cry, and buy your PEP ration for the new buy while you can! Should you? The chance of moving as much as £18,000 of investment out of the tax net looks one to take. Remember, though, that tax breaks are good servants but bad masters. They can improve a sound investment but they can- not redeem a dud. At times of frenzy, play safe — and if you buy a PEP invested in a single company, make that company big and boring.
Previous page
