Coffee Break Finance

Good financial planning technique

2012-01-05T23:37:00.000-08:00

In the picture below, our colleague Steve demonstrates good financial planning technique:

How do you approach financial planning?

So, what did you get for Christmas?

2011-12-26T07:25:00.000-08:00

CoffeeBreakFinance hopes you all had wonderful Christmases, and wishes you all a very Happy New Year!

The quite time between Christmas and New Year provides the perfect opportunity to take stock of all the wonderful gifts Santa brought into your home and to make sure your home insurance is up to date. Why not update your Coffee Break Finance Home Contents Insurance Asset Register now, while all those gifts are still fresh in your mind?

For more information, see also:

And if you're still reeling from all that pre-Christmas spending, don't forget that Coffee Break Finance is completely free to use. We don't ask for your personal details - not even your email address - so you can rest assured that your information is safe with us and that we can't sell your details or start sending you spam!

How to compare you actual income and outgoings to your budget

2011-12-06T12:56:00.001-08:00

There are two main reasons why you would want to compare you actual income and outgoings to your budget.

You may not know what your monthly budget is and you are trying to work it out by creating a baseline from your recent actual income and outgoings.
You may have a goal to, for example, reduce your outgoings in one or more categories, and you are trying to see if you have achieved your goal.

What ever your reasons, CoffeeBreakFinance allows you to compare your actual income and outgoings to your actual budget in 3 easy steps:

1. Upload a statement

Many banks and credit card companies now allow you to download a copy of your statement to your computer for personal safekeeping in standard formats such as OFX and CSV. Even if they don't provide specific functionality for this purpose, you can usually cut and paste your transactions into a spreadsheet programme such as Excel and then save it to CSV format from there.

Coffee Break Finance allows you to upload your statements directly from these formats directly.

2. Categorise your transactions

Once you've uploaded a statement, your next step is to categorise your transactions using the same categories as you've used in your budget. Simply select the items from the drop down lists provided. To make it even easier, Coffee Break Finance remembers all the transactions you've already categorised and suggests similar ones. You can simply "copy" the categorisation you've used before. The more transactions you categorise, the better Coffee Break Finance gets at suggesting the answer and the quicker and easier it become for you to categorise future transactions.

3. Analyse your transactions

Once you've categorised all (or at least some) of your transactions you can start to analyse your transactions. You can choose a start and end date for the period you want to analyse and Coffee Break Finance will draw pie charts showing you the breakdown of actual income and outgoings during that period. Click on a expense category to see a more detailed breakdown of that category. Below the pie charts, you will see a list all of the transactions which are included in the above analysis. You can find individual transactions, and recategorise them if you want to.

Get started now:

Autumn Statement

2011-12-01T01:36:00.001-08:00

The Coffee Break Finance tax calculator has now been updated with the 2012-13 tax rates following the minister's Autumn Statement 2011.

You can use the Coffee Break Finance tax calculator to see what impact these changes might have on your personal tax liability. Simply select 2012/13 in the tax year drop down selector. You can then repeat the calculation with the default selection of 2011/12 to see the difference.

There is handy summary of the tax rates for 2012/13 available here.

Overview

2011-11-20T05:12:00.001-08:00

Getting on top of your finances can seem like a daunting task. CoffeeBreakFinance was founded on the principle that it should be possible to break the task down into smaller tasks each of which are easy enough to do during a short break like you might take to enjoy a cup of coffee.

The first step in taking control of your finances is to set up a budget. Instead of trying to remember everything as you write up a budget, CoffeeBreakFinance encourages you to update your budget plan each time you receive a monthly bill.

learn more | get started

The next step is to compare you budget plan with your actual incomings and outgoings. CoffeeBreakFinance allows you to update your actual statements from each of your banks or credit card providers. You can then categorise them using the same categories you created when you prepared your budget. Finally CoffeeBreakFinance will analyses you transactions to show you where you are spending more or less than you budget plan.

get started

Once you've got your budget under control, the next step is to look at your insurance. The best way to make sure you've insured your household contents for enough, and to make sure you've got all the information you need to claim for any losses you may suffer is to keep a register of all the valuables in your home.

learn more | get started

If all of your income comes from a single employer you probably don't need to worry about income tax too much as your employer will deduct it from your salary for you. However, if you're self-employed, running your own business, or have income from other sources, knowing how much tax you are going to need to pay is a vital step in ensuring you've got enough set aside when the time comes.

learn more | get started

CoffeebreakFinance originated from a need to get on top of our own personal finances. However, since then we've been open to and incorporated solutions to the problems experienced by other people. We'd love to hear your ideas, and keep you up to date with our latest developments. You can get involved with us on Twitter, by subscribing to and commenting on this blog, or by clicking the Feeback button on the left hand side of each page.

Most of all we hope you'll enjoy getting on top of your finances and realising that it doesn't need to be such a huge chore after all. To help you get started, why not read our 7 steps to get your personal finances in order?

Could you be undervaluing your household contents for insurance?

2011-09-13T00:14:00.000-07:00

If it's been a while since you thought about the value of your household contents for insurance purposes, you should watch this video from Confused.com

Could you be undervaluing your contents by £15,000?

If you need some help, the Coffee Break Finance Home Contents Insurance Asset Register provides an easy way for you to record and calculate the value of the contents of your home on a room by room basis. The, its easy to keep it up to date by just recording new items when you purchase them. Once a year you can look through the list to see that you're happy with everything that's on it. It needn't take much time at all.

Why Budgeting is important

2011-08-18T01:58:00.000-07:00

Watch Carl Richards of BehaviourGap.com explaining why budgeting is important:

Budget outgoing categories

2011-08-17T23:43:00.000-07:00

To help you identify all of your outgoings when preparing your budget, the CoffeeBreakFinance budget planner provides a list of suggested outgoings. To make these easier to work with, they are categorised into the following categories:

Household bills: your mortgage, rent, utilities and other expenses related to the maintenance of your home.
Living costs: the costs of food, drink, personal and health care, and your mobile phone.
Financial products: savings and pension contributions, insurance premiums, bank charges and loan repayments.
Family and Friends: expenses related children, education costs, entertainment and pet.
Travel: the costs of using and maintaining your car or motorbike, and the costs of public transport.
Leisure: gifts, hobbies and holidays.

At the top of the outgoings list, you'll find a drop down list which will enable you to select each of these categories in turn.

The items within these categories should help you to identity most of your outgoings.

Of course, you can always add your own items within each category. You can even add a completely new category of your own.

Once you've captured all of your outgoings, you will see a pie-chart showing the breakdown of your expenses into each of the categories. This will help you to see where your money is actually going, and will help you to identify the key areas to focus on in order to keep your expenses down. You can also click on each 'pie-slice' to see the expenses within that category (as an alternative to using the drop-down list at the top of the list of outgoings).

Planning your budget - the bucket analogy

2011-08-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

Pete Matthew, over at Meaningful Money is full of useful tips on managing and planning your finances.

If you've not yet watched one of his videos, you might like to start with this interesting explanation of how you can plan your budget, both now and in the future.

Winning your debt issues with personal budgeting

2011-08-03T23:23:00.000-07:00

Today, we have a guest post from Neil Williams on budgeting and debt management.

Budgeting is the plan that outlines your financial and operational goals. This requires you to list your total income and also all of the expenditures. Thus, budgeting helps you to realize what your income is and what your expenditures are and if you are going overboard with your expenditures. Thus, budgeting can help you to stay away from debt and also save money from your expenditures. As it helps you in saving money, it can also help you with debt settlement payments.

What exactly is budgeting?

Budgeting is the detailed analysis of your cash flow and it can be of various types. The most helpful financial budgeting is the one that includes both types of plans – the short-range and the month-to-month plan for one calendar year and also a long-range that is the quarter-to-quarter plan that you can generally use for the purposes of reporting of the financial statements.

Can you prepare a budget on your own?

You can prepare a budget on your own if you have the time and energy and the interest to do that. In order to prepare budget on your own, you will be required to list down your total income and your expenditures separately. While listing your expenditures, it is important for you to include all of your including the variable ones.

But, if you think that formulating a budget on your own is a cumbersome process, you can do some online research and try to get a free online on-line budgeting tool. The budgeting tool will require you to simply provide the details of your income and your expenditures and after you hit enter, it will provide you with the details of your income and expenditures and how much you are able to save after the expenditures and if you are able to save at all or not.

So, you can see that budgeting is extremely important for your finances. Moreover, as you are required to list all of your expenditures, you can see if there is kind of any unnecessary expenditure included in the list. You may then be able to cut down on those expenditures and thereby lower your spending. This helps you to stay away from debt and also save money. If you are able to save money, you may also be able to use that money later for debt related payments.

You can further lower your expenditures if you follow a frugal budget. Frugal budgeting is when you try to be more specific on your expenditures, when you try to minutely follow your spending habits. This helps you to cut down on any lavish spending and any unnecessary spending too. It helps you to compartmentalize your money in the right direction without overspending. As you follow a budget, you become more conscious about your ability to spend and save money.

In addition to budgeting, you will have to set up a savings and also an emergency account so that you can put the money into it which you are able to save through budgeting. Moreover, you can also try to improve your income and analyze and modify you budget from time to time. Analyzing and modifying the budget is important because various changes can occur to your finances from time to time.

Thus, in order to keep your finances under control you can formulate a budget. It helps you manage your finances, lower your expenditures, helps you to stay away from debt and also save money at the same time. Budgeting is the only easiest process that helps you in easy handling of the problematic issues like finance and debt.

Financial Planning provides real financial and emotional benefits

2011-05-30T04:53:00.000-07:00

On average, Britons who plan for their retirement have retirement savings and investments over 4 times those who do not plan. Consequently they have higher expectations of a happy and exciting retirement. Almost half (48%) of non-planners link retirement to financial hardship, while this is a concern for just a quarter of people who do plan (23%)

Despite these benefits, fewer than 4 in 10 (39%) Britons have a financial plan in place to provide for their retirement.

The are the finding from the latest report from HSBC called The Future of Retirement, The Power of Planning.

The message is clear: financial planning has real financial and emotional benefits. So why not get started right away by following Coffee Break Finance's 7 Steps to get your personal finances in order.

7 steps to get your personal finances in order

2011-05-19T01:40:00.000-07:00

No matter what your financial circumstances, a little bit of discipline and a simple plan can help.

1. Set a budget

The first step in preparing any financial plan is setting your budget. If you don't know where your money is coming from and where it is going to, you'll never be able to identify areas for improvement.

Often, just writing this down is enough to help you focus on a reduce your outgoings. Start by looking through a few months of bank statement, and identifying categories of regular income expenditure. You can write these down in a simple list, on a spreadsheet, or using a software tool like the Coffee Break Finance budget planner. Don't forget to allow for national insurance contributions and income tax - the Coffee Break Finance tax calculator can help you with this.

When you're done, looking at the difference between your total monthly income and your total monthly outgoings - your so-called net disposable income. Your first objective is to increase this.

2. Reduce your expenditure

Having established your income, outgoings and net disposable income, the next step is to look for ways to reduce your outgoings.

There are normally two ways to do this: firstly, you can cut down on luxuries, secondly, you can hunt around for better deals. Eliminating luxuries is hard to do, and what's the point of improving your personal finance if you can't enjoy anything? But reducing them or even just setting limits to them can go a long way to preventing excess beyond your means.

More useful however, is finding ways to enjoy the same benefits at lesser cost. The internet has made it easier than ever before to compare prices and shop around for better deals. Auctions sites and comparison sites all help.

3. Increase your income

It's easy to assume that your income is fixed and forget to think to do anything about it as part of your financial plan. But there are a number of things that you could do.

If you're employed, asking for a raise is not out of the question provided you're realistic and well prepared. There are a number of resources on the Internet offering tips on how to go about this.

Also, depending on your circumstances and income, it is important to ensure you are received all the benefits and credits you're entitled to from the state - if you've paid your taxes, you should not be shy to enjoy the benefits.

Finally, you could raise extra cash by selling (for example, on eBay) any unwanted items. Besides the immediate financial gain, there is a lot to be said for decluttering your life.

4. Protect yourself

Once you've got your income and outgoings under control (and hopefully increased your net disposable income in the process) the next thing to look at is protecting yourself and your family against unforseen events.

Whilst many prefer to avoid such unpleasant thoughts, with a little preparation, you can reduce the impact of loss of physical goods, unemployment, ill-health and even death.

Taking out insurance is an obvious remedy to this. You may already get some insurance as part of your employment, but some private top-up is usually required. It is important to ensure that the cover you take actually does protect you against the circumstances you're worried about.

The Coffee Break Finance household contents insurance asset register will help you to work out how much household contents insurance you need. But insurance products are not the end of the story.

Ensuring you have sufficient emergency buffer in readily accessible cash savings is equally important in addition to insurance. This can see you through smaller set-backs (for example, where claiming on your insurance would not be worth while because of the excess or the impact on your no-claims bonus) or to see you through while your claim is process. Many people consider between 3 and 6 months of your post-tax income to be about the right amount of emergency cash to hold.

It's is also important, in the case of death, to make sure your estate is well protected to avoid unnecessary estate duty and delays in winding up your estate. You should have a will in place to ensure this goes smoothly, and consider placing life insurance policies in trust.

5. Reduce your debts

In financial planning terms, debt is often portrayed as a bad thing to be repaid as soon as possible without much further discussion.

However, that is not always the case. Low interest debts, such as student loans may be worth hanging onto; few can afford to but a home without taking out a mortgage, and even short-term debt can provide much needed liquidity.

But debt can be a dangerous thing and in general one should seriously consider paying down debt starting with the loans with the highest interest rates (usually credit cards and short-term debts) and working you way down to the lower interest rate debts (usually mortgages).

As a rule of thumb, you might use any disposable income free up from the above steps to pay down debt, or you might use any savings which are currently earning a lower interest rate than what you are paying on your loans.

Be careful not to use up your emergency fund, though, otherwise you might not be able to get that money if you need it, without going back into debt, possibly on even worse terms.

The trick to reducing your debts is to learn to spend less than you earn - i.e. the exact opposite of what got you into debt in the first place. This is the golden rule of personal finance.

6. Increase your savings

Having sorted out all of the above issues, you are ready to start saving (or to increase your savings).

In general, in the steps above you will have taken a number of actions which may have affected your net disposable income (your income minus your outgoings). That's what's left and you should look to save as much of it as possible (if not all of it).

Remember that because of the compounding effect, the sooner you start saving, the more your money will grow.

7. Optimise your savings and investments

Finally, you should try to ensure that you are getting the most value out of what you save.

This is probably as much an art as it is a science, and for that reason it may be advisable to consult a good financial advisor on this step (more so than on any of the other preceding steps).

There are many reasons or saving: for example, saving up to buy something, or to send your kids to university, or simply saving for your retirement. Likewise, there are many different financial products to save in. It is important to match the purpose for your savings to the product you save in.

The factors to consider include how long you're saving or investing for (when you plan on needing the money, often called your investment horizon), how likely is it that you'll need the money sooner (often referred to as accessibility), your personal attitude towards risk and return (generally investments that produce the most return also carry the greatest risk of under-performing), and your tax position. These factors will influence both the sorts of products you should consider (such as bank savings accounts, cash ISAs, stocks and shares ISAs, funds or pensions) as well as the sorts of things you invest in (such as cash, different types of equities/shares, bonds, etc.). For example, if you're saving up for your retirement which is still a way off, a pension fund with a mix of equities and bonds might be the way to go. Or if you're saving up to buy a car next year, a cash ISA might be more suitable.

If you do decide to go it alone, there are a number of discount brokers available depending on the exact services you are looking for. Examples of these are Cavendish Online, Alliance Trust Savings, Commfreefunds, Fair Investment, Club Finance, Hargreaves Lansdown, Commshare, Charwell Direct, Allenbridge, Bestinvest, Chelsea FS, Dennehy Weller, Elson Associates, Financial Discounts Direct, Fundsnet, Money Supermarket, Moneyworld, Seymour Sinclair, SFS Invest Direct, TD Waterhouse, Torquil Clark, Willis Owen, Fundsdirect, Fundchoice, iii.co.uk (note that Coffee Break Finance does not and is not able to recommend or endorse any of these, and provides this list for information purposes only).

The factors to consider in choosing a discount broker including, fee (and rebate) levels and structures, products/funds and services provided, and the amount of additional research and information provided.

No one can guarantee you wealth (and you should avoid anyone who says they can), but by applying a little discipline and following a sensible plan, you can make the most of what you've got. Good luck.

The Chancellor's Budget Speech

2011-03-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

The Coffee Break Finance tax calculator has now been updated to reflect the changes announced by the Chancellor in his budget speech of 23 March 2011 for the 2011/12 tax year. We've also updated the Coffee Break Finance analysis of "How progressive is the UK tax system?" with these changes.

You will recall that the government already announced the 2011/12 tax rates and thresholds in early December last year. The only change to the tax rates and thresholds since that announcement are that the main rate of corporate tax will be 26% instead of the previously announced 27%. This rate will still continue to reduce by 1% a year until it reaches 23% on 1 April 2014. The smaller companies rate of corporate tax will be 20% as previously announced.

The personal allowance for 2011/12 remains as previously announced. However, the chancellor did announce that it will increase, for people under 65, to £8,105 from 6.4.2012 in line with the previously stated intention to increase it to £10,000 in future years. There will be a compensating £630 reduction in the Higher rate threshold to £34,370.

The chancellor also announced that direct taxes would be indexed by CPI from 6 April 2012, with the exception of some (mostly NIC related) which will remain indexed by RPI for the remainder of this term of parliament.

Looking further ahead, the chancellor confirmed the review of IR35 rules, and also announced a consultation on merging income tax and NICs (this would undoubtedly benefit or be neutral for people show principal source of income is from employment, at the expense of people for whom a significant amount of their income is in the form of interest or dividends).

The government also announced that it intends to build an online personal tax calculator by 2012 "to allow individuals to estimate how much income tax and NICs they pay." Rest assured, however, that Coffee Break Finance intends to remain ahead of the curve in providing calculators and tools that provide additional value to whatever else is available out there.

You can find the full budget report here (most of the personal tax and national insurance coverage starts on pp52).

Update: 2011/12 tax tables

2010-12-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

HMRC announced the tables confirming tax and tax credit rates and thresholds for 2011-12 over the weekend.

In summary, the changes relative to the emergency budget announced earlier in the year are:

The blind persons allowance will increase from £1,890 to £1,980.
The lower age allowance will increase from £9,490 to £9,940.
The upper age allowance will increase from £9,640 to £10,090.
The higher rate threshold will increase £34,900 to £35,000.
The lower rate threshold for savings only will increase from £2,440 to £2,560.
The income limit for age-related allowances will increase from £22,900 to £24,000.
There are also changes to the married couple's allowances, which the Coffee Break Finance Tax Calculator does not currently take into account, and which only applies to married people over the age of 75.
The Class 2 NIC rate per week will increase from £2.40 to £2.50.
The Lower Earnings Limit for NIC will increase from £7,045 to £7,225.
The Upper Earnings Limit for NIC will increase from £42,225 to £42,475.

Luckily, you don't need to worry about these details too much - the Coffee Break Finance Tax Calculator has been updated to do your income tax and NIC calculations for you. Simple select 2011/12 from the Tax Year pull down menu just above the Calculate Tax button.

Upload pictures of your most valuable assets

2010-11-15T13:14:00.000-08:00

One of the easiest ways to remember the details of your insured possessions is to take photographs of them. You can now upload those photos directly onto Coffee Break Finance's Asset Register, keeping them safe in our secure off-site storage with your asset register and ensuring you can access them any time you want from wherever you want.

Having photographs of your possessions will help substantiate your claims to an insurance company in the event that you suffer a loss, making it more likely that you get everything you're entitled to.

To upload your photographs to Coffee Break Finance's Asset Register,

Click Show Details next to the asset for which you wish to upload a photograph.
Click Upload a photograph in the detail panel which opens up beneath the asset.
Click Choose a file in the popup window which opens - it must be a JPG file ending in ".JPG".
The file open dialogue which opens will depend on which browser you're using. Navigate to and select a file, then select Open.
Click Upload. Depending on your connection speed, it may take a short while to upload the file. Once the file is uploaded to the Coffee Break Finance Server, the popup window will close.
The words Show Photograph will appear next to the original Upload a photograph link from step 2.
Click on Show Photograph to open your photograph in a new tab / window in your browser. (From here you should be able to save or copy your photograph using your browser's normal functionality.)

If you upload a second photograph for the same asset, the second photograph will overwrite the first on the Coffee Break Finance servers.

If you're looking for more guidance, have a look at Photography.com's guidelines for Taking Pictures for Insurance Inventories.

(Note: Some browsers may fail to upload your photographs if you attempt to upload large files and/or over slow connections.)

Don't make an interest free loan to the government

2010-09-16T05:13:00.000-07:00

Getting a tax rebate after the end of the tax year can be a pleasant and welcome surprise.

But don't forget that this means that you've overpaid your taxes in the first place. By overpaying and then claiming back after the end of the tax year, you've effectively given the government and interest free loan.

You'd be much better off paying the right tax in the first place and putting the money in the bank where it could earn you interest.

At the moment, the news is full of stories about tax miscalculations. 1.4m people have underpaid their taxes and are now being landed with tax bills averaging £1,500 each. But even more, 4.3m people, had overpaid their taxes and are now getting a rebate.

This only serves to highlight how important it is to make sure that you are paying the right amount of tax. Our tax calculator can help you ensure you're paying the right amount of tax - no more and no less - so that you can fix any problems before they start costing you money.

How do you know how much to insure your home contents for?

2010-09-16T00:42:00.000-07:00

You insure your home contents, but how do you know how much to insure them for? Perhaps you simply guess, or perhaps you allow your insurer to guess on your behalf (based on, say, the number of rooms in your house)?

But the consequences of getting it wrong are significant. On the one hand, you could end up paying more for your insurance than you need to. On the other hand, more significantly, you could be under-insured.

Under-insurance, where your home contents are insured for less than they are worth, could result in you not getting paid out in full in the event of loss. For example, if your property is worth £24,000, but only insured for £18,000, you are under-insured by 25%. Then if you suffer a loss of £12,000, your insurance company may only pay out £9,000, leaving you with an uninsured loss of £3,000. This can be particularly hard-hitting for large losses, such as fire and theft.

According to research by More Than in 2004, half of homeowners think their possessions are worth under £20,000, when in reality they are typically worth over £40,000 - that under-insurance by 50%. Research by Zurich suggests a lesser problem with only 1 in 5 households being under-insured.

Of course, the value of home contents is increasing all the time, not just in line with inflation, but also as we become more affluent and dependent on high priced electronic gadgets such as more TVs, CD / DVD / Blu-Ray players and disks, computers, MP3 players / iPods, smart-phones / iPhones, iPads, digital cameras, games consoles, etc. Although the prices of these goods is going down, we are buying more of them. But there are also increases in other areas, with the average wardrobe costing £4,000 and childrens' possession averaging at £9,000.

The best way to ensure that you have got the right level of insurance cover is to go through your home, room by room, making a list of all your possessions and their replacement values. It's important to think about eveything in your home, not just those high value gadgets, but also furniture, carpets, curtains, pictures, etc. Most insurers advise doing this once every one or two years, but a more practical approach might be to update your list more regularly, say after birthdays or Christmas when you tend to acquire lots of things.

The CoffeeBreakFinance asset register provides a convenient way of cataloging your home contents. Importantly it's stored on our servers, not in your home, so if your home is destroyed by fire, for example, your list is still safe with us. And because CoffeeBreakFinance is independent of any insurer, your list will stay with you even if you change insurers (perhaps for a better deal). It's easy to update, so you won't need to start again each time you need to review your insurance cover.

Why not register with CoffeeBreakFinance right now, and start creating some peace of mind!

Privacy Statement

2010-07-06T00:02:00.001-07:00

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Now available on the iPhone

2010-07-01T00:24:00.000-07:00

CoffeeBreakFinance.com has now been optimised for the iPhone.

To calculate income tax, NIC and corporation tax (if applicable) for employed or self-employed people, or incorporated businesses, simply point your iPhone at http://coffeebreakfinance.com. You can also calculate and compare between the current tax year, and next tax year as described in the emergency budget on 22 June 2010.

Tips:

Use the share this button at the bottom of CoffeeBreakFinance.com to e-mail the link to yourself, and then click on the link when the e-mail arrives on your iPhone, to save yourself having to type the link into your iPhone.
Use your iPhone horizontally (in landscape) mode for best effect.
Don't forget to press the little + at the bottom of your iPhone screen to save CoffeeBreakFinance.com to your iPhone desktop.

Please let us have your comments, feedback and suggestions, either as comments below this blog entry, or by clicking on the Feedback tab at CoffeeBreakFinance.com.

Emergency Budget Updates

2010-06-23T14:23:00.000-07:00

At Coffee Break Finance, you can now see exactly what the impact of the changes announced in yesterday's emergency budget on your personal tax situation will be.

The changes we've incorporated include, and which become effective in April 2011, are:

Personal Income Tax

The Personal Allowance has increased from £6,475 to £7,745
The income level at which the higher rate of tax applies has been reduced from £37,400 to £34,900

Personal National Insurance

All rates have all increased by 1%
The lower earnings limit for National Insurance has increase from £5,715 to £7,045, and the upper earnings limit has reduced from from £43,875 to £42,225

Corporation Tax

Both the main rate of corporation tax and the small profits rate have reduced by 1% to 27% and 20% respectively (The main rate of corporation tax will continue to reduce by 1% each year until it reaches 24%)

These proposals may, however, be amended significantly before enactment.