While you’re in the mood for getting a refund on a useless product, you might want to root through your wallet, purse or matress for any old £20 notes and hot-foot it down to your bank. Today is the last day that the Elgar £20 note will be accepted in shops having been gradually replace by it’s successor, the slightly more purple one.

The new twenty, introduced in 2007, features economist Adam Smith and is definiately the one you want if a shop keeper gives you a £20 note in change. If you have an Elgar note and no shopkeeper will take it, today is the day to swap it at your bank or local post office, as from tomorrow they do it only at their descretion.

Strangely however, you may still find Elgar poked out of a cash machine when you request twenty pounds as there is no formal penalty in place to prevent the banks from issuing old notes. What to do if you get one and can’t swap it? You’ll have to post it to the Bank of England I’m afraid, but don’t worry, they’re good with money – they’ll sort you out.

Did you listen to the Budget announcement yesterday by Chancellor George Osbourne?

It has been probably one of the most uneagerly anticipated budgets in recent years as it was expected to bring cuts in a bad way and rises in a, well, bad way. Lets take a look what was actually announced:

TAXES

- VAT on goods and services is going up on 4 January 2011 from 17.5% to 20%.

Why? The increase will generate more than £13bn a year by the end of 2014-15 to offset the deficit.

- From today Capital Gains Tax (CGT) will rise to 28% for taxpayers on higher income tax rates.

Why? It’s all about the deficit, the CGT changes should bring in an extra £1bn.

- The 10% CGT rate for entrepreneurs will be extended from the first £2m of qualifying gains to £5m.

Why? To encourage new business start-ups, the foundation of the economy, and to help young companies.

The personal income tax allowance is to be increased by £1,000 in April next year to £7,475.

Why? This is a Lib Dem drive to eventually raise the allowance to £10,000. This initial rise will mean 23 million basic-rate taxpayers will save up to £170 a year.

- Food items and children’s’ clothing will remain zero rated.

- No increases in duties on alcohol, tobacco or fuel and the 10% cider rate has been scrapped.

BENEFITS

- Benefits, tax credits and public service pensions will be no-longer be uprated by the retail prices index, instead the lower consumer prices index will be used.

Why? It will save the government £6bn a year.

- Tax credits will be cut for households earning more than £40,000 next year.
- The ‘Health in Pregnancy’ grant will be removed from April 2011.
- Lone parents will now have to look for work once their youngest starts school.
- Child benefit for all families will be frozen for the next 3 years.
- A medical assessment for Disability Living Allowance will be introduced from 2013 for all claimants to cut down on the number of people claiming it.
- Housing benefit will be restricted to a maximum limit of £400 a week.

Why all of these changes? They will save £11bn a year over the next 5 years.

EMPLOYERS

- The National Insurance threshold will rise by £21 per week above indexation in line with inflation.

- Corporation tax will be cut in April to 27%, and then drop 1% annually for the next 3 years, down to 24%.

- The small companies’ tax rate will drop to 20%.

Why? All of these changes are aimed at giving businesses more of a reason to keep people employed.

PUBLIC SECTOR

- There will be a 2 year pay freeze for workers in the public sector, but those who earn less than £21,000 a year are exempt and will receive pay increases of £250 a year for each of the two years.

THE END. (hopefully not)

So there it is, the Budget 2010 and we’ll all be affected. But just how much will you feel the changes? Let us know in the comments below.

In a year that has seen mis-sold PPI grab all the financial industr headlines with tales of mis-selling and billion pound refunds, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has handed out record levels of fines. A total of £54.5 million has been levied against offending companies which is a hefty amount but not enough to make George Osborne, the Chancellor, change his mind about shutting down the financial watchdog.

Last week the coalition Government announced that the FSA would be replaced by 2012 on the grounds that the regulator didn’t do much regulating. In response to this the FSA handed out £1.2 million in fines in one day, £500,000 for the photo booth comapany Photo-Me and £700,000 to the money broker Vantage. Still getting replaced though, too little too late.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) was created by Gordon Brown in 1997 and designed to regulate UK banks, issuing fines and penalties if they misbehaved. Basically they were the police of the banks, only that’s not really fair on the Police. That’s because the FSA didn’t stop the banks misbehaving and a few million mis-sold PPI victims and unemployed people across the UK can vouch for that.

Anyway, it seems the shelf life of an FSA is 15 years because the current Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he will abolish the Financial Services Authority and give most of its power to the Bank of England, starting in 2012. Osborne blames the FSA for failing to prevent the financial crisis that left us in the deepest recession in post war times.

Over the next two years the watchdog will be wound down and replaced by three bodies:

- Prudential Regulatory Authority
- Financial Policy Committee
- Consumer Protection & Markets Agency

Whether having three regulators instead of one will make any difference remains to be seen and many have already criticised the move as “simply rebranding”.

In a move to help PPI claimants understand the scandal of PPI mis-selling and the claim process for seeking recompense, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has released some case details. In total eight cases that were brought to the FOS have been made publicby the regulator which has also been taking other steps to support the ever-increasing number of PPI claims.

Resources have been shifted from other departments to deal with the overwhelming number of PPI complaints that the FOS are receiving. Last year 135 complaints were made a day with 60% of them coming through claims management companies.

If you have Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) on your radar, you’ll no doubt notice that a week doesn’t go by without another report about mis sold PPI and the problems associated with it. The much maligned insurance has taken quite a hit over the past few years after it emerged that millions of policies have been mis sold.

As important as it is that this scandal is exposed and those responsible are brought to account, it is also important to remember that it is still worth considering PPI cover if you have a borrowing. PPI, when sold correctly, is fundamentally a good product and with countless Cameron cuts on the way it really could be a life-saver. For sure reclaim mis-sold PPI payments but also look into insuring yourself through a trusted independent insurer.