We’re sending our tax year end update a little early this year, as there are a few additional challenges to factor into your clients’ plans. In this email we’ll share our cut-off dates and information about how Curtis Banks can help with your clients’ tax year end planning.

The challenges

This has already been a tax year like no other, with a range of unforeseen challenges to overcome. The end of a tax year is always a busy time, and we wanted to highlight a few particular considerations that could affect your clients’ plans this year:

• Easter weekend will take up the last few days of this tax year, meaning that the last working days will fall earlier than usual. This also means there may be less scope for flexibility with firms’ published cut-off dates.

• Some areas of the country are experiencing delays with postal services, including recorded and special deliveries, which could cause problems in transactions where an original form is required.

• Different firms have taken different approaches to adapting their processes and working practices. While most new processes have been in place for a while and are running smoothly, there’s still an increased potential for delays – particularly in transactions involving multiple firms that need to accommodate each other’s altered requirements.

How we can help

We’ve already published our cut-off dates for setting up new SIPPs, making contributions, and arranging payments of income or tax free cash. You can view these on the homepage of our website.

We also have the following tips to help ensure that your clients’ tax year end plans go as smoothly as possible:

• Where at all possible, please arrange for contributions to be sent electronically by bank transfer to help ensure the funds reach us on time. You can find the appropriate bank details for your clients’ SIPPs in Appendix A of our contribution form. We can still accept cheques, but the abovementioned postal delays increase the risk that funds will not reach us in time.

• Please be aware that for all contributions, it is the date funds reach us that determines which tax year the contribution falls in, rather than the date funds leave the sender’s account. Funds that are sent by bank transfer over Easter weekend are unlikely to reach us until next tax year. Pension legislation only allows contributions to be refunded in very limited circumstances, so it’s highly unlikely we would be able to return such payments.

• You can now send us electronic copies of many of our forms online using our secure portal. This should help alleviate issues with obtaining wet signatures and avoid potential postal delays. If you don’t yet have access to our portal:

– For Your Future SIPP or Suffolk Life products, click here to register.
– For Curtis Banks products, click here to find the details you need on our Contact page.

We recommend requesting access to the portal as early as possible to help avoid any potential delays at the end of the tax year.

• If your client wants to take tax free cash or income before the end of the tax year and will need to disinvest assets, please make sure you have checked the requirements and cut-off dates of all firms involved, paying particular attention to any transactions that will require original documents. The cut-off dates we provide on our website assume that cash is available ready for payment, so please take this into account when planning your disinvestment instructions.

If you have any questions please contact your usual Business Development Manager, or visit our contact page to find details for the team you need to reach.

Kind regards,
Curtis Banks