Understanding tax makes you Better with Money

Better with Money’s mission is to help reduce money stress by providing employees with financial education in the workplace.

We help people put in place the foundations for a better financial future by explaining how to budget, managing debt in an effective way. Sometimes, we help people understand more specific financial challenges, such as ‘how to buy a home’, or ‘preparing your child for university’. Everything we do involves helping people understand their finances better so that they can have a healthier relationship with money, and we always strive to do it in a fun, interesting and accessible way.

And therein lies a problem. With the end of the tax year looming, this month we want to talk about tax; a subject that tends to score rather low on the list of “fun and interesting” things people want to learn about!

You see, for many people, their appreciation (or perhaps that should be grudging understanding?) of tax is often limited to how much tax is deducted from their hard-earned wages at the end of each month. They consider tax to be complicated and dull. It can be seen as something only high earners and the self-employed really need to concern themselves with. In all likelihood, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer presents his annual budget, most people are more interested in the increase in the cost of a litre of petrol or bottle of wine rather than the changes to capital gains tax rates, taper relief, and personal allowances.

But the reality is that understanding tax is important as it affects us all, regardless of how much we earn or how much money we have. Understanding tax means being able to check if you are paying the right amount of tax on your wages each month. It means knowing whether you are getting and using the various tax allowances and reliefs the Government provides each year. It means understanding tax matters that could benefit you now (such as claiming tax relief if you work from home), and in the future (such as inheritance tax that could be payable on an estate when someone dies). Understanding tax also means knowing how you can pay into a pension, or save for a rainy day, in a way that makes your savings grow more quickly because the tax system is helping you.

The thing about personal finance, financial education and becoming Better with Money is that there are always things to be reminded of and new things to learn. Just because tax doesn’t have the most thrilling of reputations, it certainly shouldn’t be overlooked or forgotten and, in fact, should be embraced. That is why Better with Money has created a webinar called “Understanding Tax Allowances” which aims to help employees understand areas of tax that are important to their financial wellbeing both now, and in the future. Unlike the Chancellor of the Exchequer at his annual budget speech, we think we can make tax fun, interesting and accessible; as unlikely as that may seem.

If you would like to find out more about the courses Better with Money provides, please contact us.
.