Following the Budget today, we have taken the time to analyse the main areas to ensure we fully understand the most important Financial Planning issues for our clients.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling is delivering what looks like to be his last ever Budget Report to the House of Commons at 12.30pm today.

New research from Prudential has found that nearly three million UK adults have delayed their plans to retire due to recession, personal financial emergency or simply because they want to keep working for longer to build a larger pension fund.

Self-employed people could be putting their financial futures at risk by placing their businesses ahead of their long-term financial planning.

Some new research from AXA on the widening gulf between private and public sector pension provision has been picked up by the television news this evening.

Informed Choice chartered financial planner Martin Bamford was quoted in Money Marketing this week, in an article reporting on proposals to scrap the default retirement age.

In what is turning out to be an interesting day for pension announcements, it was confirmed earlier that contracting-out under defined contribution pension schemes will be abolished from 6 April 2012.

The government has announced that NEST will meet the Pension Commission’s goal for a low cost retirement savings scheme, as it will have an anticipated 0.3% annual management charge over the longer term.

Informed Choice chartered financial planner Martin Bamford was featured as the expert in the lead article on the thisismoney.co.uk website today, answering the question “How much should I save for retirement?”

With Mother’s Day this weekend, perhaps it is time to arrange a financial makeover for your mum. New research from Defaqto has found that only 22% of women have sought financial advice.

Inconveniently, the tax year end this year coincides with both a weekend and Bank Holidays (Good Friday and Easter Monday). This means that anyone leaving their 2009/10 ISA contributions to the last minute need to be aware of what that last minute actually is!

Some new research suggests that over 100,000 women could miss out on thousands of pounds in retirement because they were born just a day too early to benefit from pension rule changes.

The 50% highest rate income tax band comes into effect on 6th April 2010 for those with incomes of more than £150,000. Is it time to reconsider that old chestnut “the salary sacrifice technique”?

The anti-forestalling measures introduced and then updated last year, restricting higher rate income tax relief on pension contributions, have been updated again.

Even as we start to leave economic recession, many employers are continuing to downsize their workforces, and are often targeting those employees who are the most expensive by offering a ‘package’ of redundancy and retirement options.

Some new research from Standard Life has found that around 250,000 higher rate taxpayers are missing out on the full tax relief available on their pension contributions. In some cases they have been missing out for several years.

90% of UK businesses intend to seek external expert advice to help them understand the impact of the Government’s workplace pension reforms due to be introduced from 2012.

Informed Choice directors Martin Bamford and Nick Bamford have appeared in Retirement Strategy magazine (February 2010) in the head-to-head feature, which this month asked do you agree with the Conservatives’ proposal to scrap forced annuitisation at age 75?

Changes to the requirements to earn a full State pension come into force from 6th April 2010. From midnight on 6th April, the number of qualifying years is being reduced to 30 for both men and women.

We are often asked by clients if they should ‘top-up’ their National Insurance contributions in order to get a better State pension when they retire.