Don't bury your head in the sand

Leading UK wealth manager Rensburg Sheppards is urging investors to take action before the tax year end to review their finances and ensure they are as tax efficient as possible.

The company urges investors to face up to the realities of the global financial crisis as if anyone was ever in any doubt about the importance of financial planning, then the scale and speed of the events of 2008 should have completely removed any complacency.

Graham Barber, head of financial planning at Rensburg Sheppards comments: "Now is not the time to bury your head in the sand and avoid the facts. When uncertainty prevails it is important to hold fast to the basic principles of personal financial planning and stay with an agreed allocation and diversified portfolios, nevertheless investors do need to reassess their financial goals and the timeframe previously set to achieve them.

"Equally, investors need to reconcile their attitude to investment risk and to work with their financial planner to create an appropriate investment allocation model."

But Barber warns that this alone is not enough and that maximising the tax efficiency is also essential.

"This may simply be a case of ensuring a husband and wife are making full use of their personal allowances or perhaps using a ‘tax wrapper' to hold investments" says Barber. "Or, particularly for higher rate tax payers, it could be a case of taking full advantage of contribution levels for personal pensions and considering stakeholder payments for non-earning spouses and children."

ISAs, Venture Capital Trusts and even charitable giving can all qualify for valuable tax advantages, whilst options are also available to help mitigate capital gains tax and inheritance tax.

Barber continues, "Given the wide range of possibilities it is important that investors seek professional financial planning help to construct portfolio solutions and make the most of the tax advantages before the end of the tax year."

This year the tax year end of April 5 falls on a Sunday and so investors need to take account of the weekend when meeting the deadline.