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      • Taxation & duties law

        Inheritance Tax Made Simple

        The Essential Guide to Understanding Inheritance Tax

        by Andrew Komarnyckyj

        'Inheritance Tax Made Simple' offers practical measures that you can take to reduce the burden of inheritance tax (IHT). This applies whether you are concerned about the impact on your own money and assets, or you are receiving an inheritance which may be subject to IHT or cause you to be subject to IHT.The book is divided into four parts:Part 1: An overview of inheritance tax.Part 2: Planning to reduce any IHT burden during your lifetime.Part 3: Taking measures to reduce the burden of IHT on death.Part 4: Dealing with IHT issues if you are administering an estate.Inheritance tax touches some of the most sensitive areas of any legal subject, and dealing with it can often be unduly stressful, or come at a difficult time in your life or the lives of loved ones. It is the aim of this book to be helpfully straightforward and a thorough guide to this complex area of law, and to lessen such stresses as far as is possible.---Erratum to first edition:Point (4) on page 14 should read: "In some cases there will be a nil-rate band to transfer where the death of the first spouse occurred before 21 March 1972. Prior to 21 March 1972, if a husband or wife left assets to his or her spouse (or anyone else) those assets were taxable. If the assets exceeded the nil- rate band in force at the time, there will be no nil-rate band available to transfer. If they were less than the nil- rate band at the time, there could be a partial or entire nil-rate band to transfer."

      • Wills & probate / Succession

        Probate Made Simple

        The Essential Guide to Saving Money and Getting the Most Out of Your Solicitor

        by Andrew Komarnyckyj

        Dealing with probate comes at a difficult time when a stressful legal process is particularly unwelcome. Probate can certainly appear daunting in its complexity and can be expensive in solicitors' fees, but it is possible to simplify the process and minimise the cost by taking a logical approach.The essentials of probate work do not require special skill or expertise and it is therefore eminently feasible for most people without legal training to do the bulk of the work themselves. This means you can avoid paying expensive legal fees for select parts of the probate, making a saving of hundreds or even thousands of pounds.Probate Made Simple, written by a solicitor with over 15 years' experience in wills and probate, sets out the detailed and specific steps to follow in order to work on probate logically, ensuring that the reader completes everything in the the right order and at the right time and that no vital stages are overlooked.It also identifies areas of probate where the advice and indemnity cover of a solicitor is beneficial.Where the involvement of solicitors is necessary, essential inside information is provided to help the reader negotiate realistic legal fees, no matter the level of professional help required. Guidance on how to minimise and evaluate solicitors' quotes, and get the most out of legal professionals for less - with breakdowns of what typical probate tasks involve, and what charging methods solicitors employ - make the book an indispensable guide for getting fair legal services.In addition to this, over thirty template letters are provided as practical examples of the correct approach to follow when contacting banks, insurance firms, beneficiaries of the will, solicitors and others.Saving money on probate work in the simple ways outlined in this book could make a real difference to your inheritance and to the sums received by the other beneficiaries of a will. This is the book anyone going through this potentially expensive, stressful and opaque process needs to have to hand.Purchasers and potential purchasers of the book are recommended to visit the author's website at www.willsprobateandmore.co.uk to make use of the free supplementary information (available as PDF downloads) which is available to complement the information provided in the book.

      • Entrepreneurship

        Millionaire Mumpreneurs

        How Successful Mums Made a Million Online and How You Can Do It Too!

        by Mel McGee

        Inspiring stories from some of the world's most successful mumpreneurs'Millionaire Mumpreneurs' isn't about traditional start-ups or entrepreneurs. It's not about setting up a coffee shop, selling stuff on eBay, or marketing your own brand of organic clothing. It's about a new form of internet-based business, where you market your knowledge and expertise.From the woman who created her venture with a toddler underfoot, to the stressed advertising exec turned nutritionist, to the lawyer who took a leap of faith, Mel conducts interviews and profiles each mumpreneur's individual story and the secrets of their success.Offering practical information and tips on how you can do it too, 'Millionaire Mumpreneurs' covers many aspects of building a virtual business at home: from social-media marketing and multiple incomes to fitting your business around your family life.Motherhood doesn't mean you have to limit your options and potential. Far from it! By becoming a mumpreneur you can take control of your working life and achieve business success for yourself whilst being there for your family.'Millionaire Mumpreneurs' is a guide for mums who want to know how to go about building a new kind of business from home and create their ideal flexible lifestyle.

      • Stocks & shares

        Red Joker Rules

        by Pat Holland

        "Gambling is investing, and investing is gambling," says the Red Joker.Both situations begin with a common pool of money. The pool is distributed among those who have created it on the basis of a series of events that are partly controllable. Through a mixture of skills, self-control and sheer luck, some of those who have created it will receive more than others.There is no inherent difference between sifting through a horse's prospects of winning a race and a company's prospects of returning regular profits. There is no inherent difference in deciding whether to raise the betting on a particular hand of cards and deciding whether a property is a good or bad buy.But there is a world of difference between the pace of gambling and the pace of investing. A gambler faces as many investment situations in a week as an investor does in a lifetime. The rules are the same, but the gambler is in a situation where he can learn the rules very quickly.This is a book of advice from the gambler to the investor - The Red Joker Rules.

      • Banking

        Restoring Confidence in the Financial System

        See-through Leverage: A Powerful New Tool for Revealing and Managing Risk

        by Sean Tully

        'Restoring Confidence In The Financial System' is a ground-breaking book in which a top mathematician, who is also one of the City of London's most experienced traders, and an experienced City banker explore how confidence in the global financial system was destroyed by the current banking crisis. Drawing on his firsthand experience of steering the trading floor at a major European bank, Sean Tully, together with Richard Bassett, analyses the steps that led up to the crisis and pinpoint precisely one of the main causes of the lending bubble with whose consequences we are all now living.The authors explain the intricacies of the regulatory framework of Basel I and Basel II, the two landmark events in banking regulation which inadvertently laid the foundation for the current crisis. The authors then show how a radical and new but easily understood measure of risk, revealed here for the first time, can prevent another such bubble from ever happening again. This new measure, called see-through leverage or STL, can be used to restore faith in the financial system by allowing a rapid means of differentiating between potentially toxic and healthy 'AAA'-rated securities. Armed with STL, investors, rating agencies and regulators alike can cut through the complexity of economic modeling to the nub of the problem: leverage.'Restoring Confidence In The Financial System' is a vital book for the international business community. In a globally interconnected world, no one can claim to be untouched by the crisis. How could bankers have got their sums so wrong? How could regulators and politicians have failed to see the storm coming? Above all, how can confidence be restored to get the wheels of the global finance machine working again? This book has the solution.

      • Management decision making

        A New Framework for It Investment Decisions

        A Practical Guide to Assessing the True Value of It Projects

        by Antony Barnes

        Making Better IT Investment DecisionsA New Framework for IT Investment Decisions is an essential guide to getting more out of IT for business. Fully illustrated and explained with reference to numerous examples from across industries and the world, this is a groundbreaking book for advancing businesses beyond some of the unhelpful investment frameworks of the past, and attaining more accurate, comprehensive and profitable knowledge of how to approach IT projects and systems.An urgently needed new frameworkThere is always enormous pressure on businesses to control their spending and maximise the benefits of all investment projects. This applies particularly to IT spending, where the business case for a typical IT project can often be unclear to managers and investors. Any decision on IT investment involves an assessment of the potential costs and benefits. But the benefits are hard or impossible to calculate using traditional measures such as return on investment (ROI). A new framework is needed in order to make better IT investment decisions and this book provides it.The framework is based on simple ideas about the way in which IT systems interact with a business. Building on these simple ideas, some radical conclusions can be drawn about the nature of IT investment and how it affects a business. These conclusions are very different to the commonly accepted approach to IT investment. Key to the new framework is the concept that most IT spending is geared towards building future capabilities that will not generate an immediate return. These ideas are brought together into a simple decision table that managers will find invaluable in making better decisions about IT projects.A guide for all business managersThis book is for business executives who need to make investment decisions about IT projects, or who need to understand the thinking behind such decisions. This includes almost all business managers, not just those who are directly concerned with IT. It also includes those in the public and not-for-profit sectors.

      • Commodities

        The Commodities Investor

        A Beginner's Guide to Diversifying Your Portfolio With Commodities

        by Philip Scott

        In the last decade the performance of commodity assets has been remarkable. Rising demand for raw materials from emerging economies, political and economic disruptions to production and supply, and the introduction of commodities exchange traded funds (ETFs) have combined to push up the cost of the globe's resources. In many of the commodities markets prices rose to record levels, only to fall again sharply in the 2007-2009 financial crisis.But many experts believe that the bull-run in commodities is not yet finished and it is argued that prices could continue to rise well into the next decade. This presents opportunities for investors, but what is the best way to capitalise on these opportunities?The aim of this book is to help investors understand the fundamentals behind the major commodities in the primary resource sectors - energy, base metals, precious metals and agriculture - and to show the value of commodities as a means to diversify exposure and spread risk.The individual commodities within the four sectors are examined in turn, with an analysis of historic price performance, an outline of the supply and demand dynamics, and a discussion on the future outlook for each resource. In each case the best and safest routes for gaining exposure to the four main sectors are explained, and a full list of commodity ETFs listed on the London Stock Exchange is also provided.The book provides the investor with both the rationale for diversifying part of an investment portfolio into commodities and the basic knowledge required in order to invest successfully in these exciting and ever changing sectors.

      • Personal finance

        The Ultra High Net Worth Banker's Handbook

        by Stephan Meier

        Estimates show that there are around 20,000 Ultra High Net Worth individuals in existence today, each with bankable assets in excess of $50 million. Between them they possess a wealth of $5,000 billion, 10‰ of the world's estimated total wealth. The UHNW wealth management business is therefore a critically important as well as complex part of modern finance. It exists within a "client-banker-bank" triangle and is influenced by serious exogenous factors in political, economic and fiscal environments, as well as by numerous emotional, familial and personal dimensions. In this book the authors address these complex relationships, serving as guides and advisors for UHNW bankers, banks and clients alike.The authors' clients have taught them that the three major frustrations for private banking clients are bad performance, bad communication with the banker, and confusion in the face of poorly explained financial processes. In the first part of the book the authors offer their expert solutions to these problems and, in the second, help to eliminate confusion by explaining UHNW financial processes as clearly and simply as possible.The authors mix authoritative advice, gained from long careers in wealth management, with anecdotes and narrative, to make the book approachable as well as informative. The book also contains five major case studies that help to exemplify certain elements involved in UHNW banking across the world, including the importance and impact of: family values and governance; client confidence and connections; cultural and religious considerations; philanthropy; market crises and volatility; portfolio diversity and enterprise management.This book is for private bankers who work or aim to work in the Ultra High Net Worth field, the most sought-after and secluded high-end client segment of private banking and wealth management. For UHNW clients, this book is a guide on how to deal with your bankers and what you can expect from them, depicting the view from the other side of the table. And for the management of a private bank or private banking division of a financial institution, this book will serve as an essential introduction on how to improve performance.Expert, in-depth and accessible, The Ultra High Net Worth Banker's Handbook is the ultimate guide to this area of modern finance.

      • Stocks & shares

        Bets and the City

        Sally Nicoll's Spread Betting Diary

        by Sally Nicoll

        "Markets. They go up. They go down. How difficult can it be?"Sally Nicoll begins her spread betting journey with magnificently misplaced optimism. Join her on this rollercoaster ride to hardened pessimist - and wised-up realist.Funny, frank, factualShould we be afraid that in the digital era, anyone with a broadband connection and a few hundred pounds can gatecrash the elite world of City traders - even if, like Sally Nicoll, they are numerically dyslexic?Sally is looking for a source of extra cash to fund a sabbatical while she writes a novel, and decides spread betting is the answer. She tries to open an account with Finspreads - "their web site has the best colour scheme" - only to discover she's been credit blacklisted. Instead of being thankful for divine intervention, she complains to the marketing department and is hired to write an online trading blog.Bets and the City is based on Sally's enormously popular column for Finspreads. In between the funny bits, there's some really useful information:- Never take a holiday in Cornwall when you're speculating on sterling against the dollar- Why you should resist the temptation to be kind to your mother- Sensible advice from the man who lost $10 million in a single trading session- Why women make better traders than men- The simple trade that enables you to turn your computer into a cash registerSally's romp through the City, combined with her anecdotes of hanging out in celebrity-studded Primrose Hill, will appeal to investors, gamblers, and anyone who enjoys playing with money. And prepare to be entertained by Sally's spread betting accomplice, a Jack Russell called Dow Jones...

      • Economic theory & philosophy

        Milton Friedman

        A Concise Guide to the Ideas and Influence of the Free-market Economist

        by Eamonn Butler

        "One of the most important economic thinkers of all time"- Paul KrugmanMilton Friedman changed the world. From free markets in China to the flat taxes of Eastern Europe, from the debate on drugs to interest rate policy, Friedman's skill for vivid argument and ideas led to robust and often successful challenges to a dizzying amount of received wisdom.Relying on big-picture economic analysis and an insistent faith in human freedom, he took on the economic and political orthodoxies of his day - and if he didn't always win, he never failed to change the terms of the debate.Rarely an uncontroversial figure, with his disciples and detractors to this day, this is neither a credulous nor a critical look at the Nobel laureate. A brand new guide, it simply sets out to explain his economic and public policy thinking in a straightforward and accessible way for the general reader and student.Find out:- how Friedman undermined Keynesianism and the prevailing wisdom of large-scale economic intervention- how he demonstrated the true cause of the Great Depression and identified its real culprits (they weren't the ones jumping out of the windows)- what Friedman believed really destroys the value of the money in your pocket and how it can be stopped- his arguments for why regulations and minimum- wage laws actually achieve lower standards and greater poverty- his reasons for why big corporations prefer markets that aren't free, and how high taxation harms the wealthy less than anyone else.With more, too, on democracy, equality, global trade, education, public services and financial crises, this is a concise but comprehensive guide to the influence of a key 20th century thinker.It is a must-read for anyone who wants to know more about the economist whose work changed everything.

      • Investment & securities

        Malcolm Pryor's Spread Betting Techniques

        Winning Trend and Counter-trend Strategies for All Time Frames and Traders

        by Malcolm Pryor

        3 new, exclusive strategies from a master spread bettorTake your spread betting to the next level with these proven, documented exclusive strategies - right out of the box.Spread betting expert and bestselling author Malcolm Pryor takes viewers through every stage of successfully setting up and executing three brand new spread betting strategies. Each with a thoroughly demonstrated edge, they work on all time frames and are suitable for traders of all levels of experience. You can use them to start banking profits right away.A one-on-one course of unbeatable depthA two-hour DVD with accompanying workbook, this is the most comprehensive one-on-one spread betting training course available. Pryor unveils the details of three strategies, both trend-following and counter-trend, with a blend of in-chart demonstration and to-camera presentation.Featuring more than 20 video modules, including - alongside the detailed explanation of the three strategies - a refresher on key trading concepts, plus advanced insights on adapting and constructing your own strategies.You also get personal support from Malcolm and other traders via access to the exclusive members' area of the www.spreadbettingcentral.co.uk forums.

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