Retail investors may be paying tax unnecessarily

A loophole in the UK's tax rules relating to financial advisers means investors can avoid paying VAT on certain transactions, but some advisers could be charging it nevertheless

Gary Dale head of structured products at Investec
Gary Dale, Investec

Retail investors in the UK could be paying value added tax (VAT) on financial advice that is tax exempt because some independent financial advisers (IFAs) are either unaware of, do not understand or are ignoring the tax exemption on such advice that was introduced by the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) at the end of 2012, according to participants in the structured products market.

"Some IFAs do not actually know about [the exemption], and that is not a good situation for the structured

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