“Bosses’ pandemic pay cuts ‘superficial’ says report”

Aug 5, 2020 | Companies

An independent (financial adviser’s) view

So two thirds of the bosses of our biggest companies have not taken any pay cuts while, in many cases, their businesses have pretty much shut down. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. They have to take the tough decisions about how many to lay off to keep their companies profitable and dividend-paying. I’d say the High Pay Centre director used masterly understatement when he said that ‘Multi-million pound pay awards worth over 100x the salary of a typical worker seem an unnecessary extravagance in a period of such economic uncertainty’. But in their defence, they’ll be paying lots of tax (except for those that don’t); so helping to support those who’ll soon be working their way through the maze of online forms needed to claim universal credit.

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“Record year for annuity sales driven by advisers”

“Record year for annuity sales driven by advisers”

I was asked this week whether annuities are now ‘a good investment’. They’ve been recommended very rarely in recent years, since ‘pension freedoms’ allowed pretty much unlimited drawdown on pension funds and anything left to be passed on to beneficiaries free of Inheritance Tax.