Age discrimination to go

For those who want to work past the age of 65 – and there is a growing number of them – the bad news is that the government has finally decided that it will not force companies to keep on workers who want to stay. From October 1 next year employers will not be able to force people to retire under the age of 65. But once you reach that age, a company can fix a retirement age for staff. But it will have to give six months notice of retirement and if the employee applies to stay on will have to consider their application carefully – but no more.

The good news, though, for people who continue in work over 65  is that the current ban on claims for unfair dismissal for anyone over 65 will be scrapped and redundancy payments will be due to anyone who is made redundant over 65. At the moment, redundancy pay is phased out from 64 and disappears altogether at 65.


Source: Labour Force Survey Spring 2003

Some forward looking companies have already scrapped upper age limits for their workers, such as supermarkets Somerfield and Kwik-Save and directory enquiries company The Number 118-118. Others, such as Nationwide building society, have raised it to 70. The question of scrapping all retirement ages will be looked at again in 2011.

More older people are working now than in the recent past, though as the graph shows the number is still small. But with health and life expectancy improving and pensions declining, that number is set to rise. A top think-tank said this summer that the Government should raise the state pension age to 67 by 2030. And from next October older people seeking work will have the law on their side. Potential employers will not be able to discriminate against applicants on grounds of age – unless they are over a company’s post 65 retirement age. But with unemployment rising and the total number of people in work falling for the first time for many years, older people will have to compete hard for the jobs there are.

Seen to be Green
From this month every new car sold in the UK will come with a label to show how much carbon dioxide it emits per kilometre driven.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the worst of the ‘greenhouse gases’ that rise to the top of the atmosphere and cause global warming. Low CO2 emissions usually mean an efficient (and smaller) engine and that means you save fuel too. But there is bigger saving from going green. The annual car tax due on vehicles registered since March 1, 2001 depends on their CO2 rating. A dark green class A car emitting less than 100g of CO2 per km driven costs £65 a year to tax. But a car with a bright red class F label will cost £165. Diesels cost £5 more in every category but there is a £5 discount for vehicles that run on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or which combine gas or electric power with a normal petrol engine. If you drive into London it is worth remembering that these vehicles are also exempt from the £8 a day Congestion Charge. There are no plans to extend the labels to the second-hand market. But if you are buying a new car, why not go green? It can save you a packet.

Note: Add £5 for diesel, subtract £5 for alternative fuel cars.

Buffett Lunch
How much would you pay to have lunch with the world’s most successful investor? One person, still anonymous, has paid more than £200,000 to take seven guests to dine with Warren Buffett, the boss of US investment firm Berkshire Hathaway who has an almost evangelical following. Each share in Berkshire Hathaway is currently trading at around $83,000. Had you given Mr Buffett $1,000 in 1965, it would be worth more than $5m today.

So $351,000 may seem a small price to hear the ideas of the world’s second-richest man. The money will benefit Glide, a charitable foundation in San Francisco which helps homeless people and poor families.

Buffett has been auctioning a lunch for the charity for some years. It used to fetch $25,000 to $50,000. But in 2003 he took the auction to the internet using eBay, and the price has soared. Last year’s lunch was bought for $201,000 by Jason Choo, a Canadian citizen who lives in Singapore. Describing the meal at the Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse in New York, he said "You want to meet him to understand him, his approach, his temperament and such. So much of investing success, as in any job, requires a certain type of personality as well as analytical skills. We didn’t talk much about investing, so we really had a great time." Worth every penny then.

Pots break records


Alexander vase £3.06 million July 2005

For many years a small blue and white vase rested dirty and unnoticed on a low shelf in a back room of a house near Salisbury. Although the owners thought it might have some value, the room was used mainly by the family’s many dogs at constant risk from a happy tail. But fortunately the vase remained intact and when the owners got a routine insurance valuation, John Axford ceramic specialist for Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis, realised that the vase,  bought for £10 in 1900 from was very much more valuable than that. His research revealed it was the only complete example of its type and dated back to the Yuan dynasty of Khubilai Khan, around 1350.

He estimated it might fetch £250,000. But the hammer finally fell on it, so to speak, at £2.6 million which, after the buyer’s premium was added, came to just over £3 million. It was the highest price for any work of art in a provincial saleroom .Charlotte Hennage of Woolley & Wallis told Saga Magazine "It was a unique experience for all of us. The owners were in the saleroom. There were eight bidders on the phone, four of them still bidding as it passed £1.5 million. The market is very strong now as Chinese collectors buy back their heritage." Two days earlier Christie’s in London also failed to predict the price of a Chinese blue and white pot from the same era. They reckoned their jar, 11 inches tall and 13 inches round, would fetch more than £1 million. But it was bought on behalf of an overseas collector for £13.5 million. The highest price ever paid for a ceramic.

Taxman looks abroad
The Government hopes to raise £80 million by taxing money held in bank accounts outside the UK and not declared to HM Revenue & Customs. Any UK resident who holds money in an account in another country is obliged to pay tax on any interest it earns. But the Government suspects there are billions of pounds lying in foreign bank accounts which is not declared and on which tax is being lost. A new law, the European Union Savings Directive, will make it much harder to hide this money from the taxman. It came into force on July 1^st and banks in EU countries and some others that have signed up to it now have to do one of two things. In most countries, they will report annually to the tax authorities in the country where the owner lives how much money is held and how much interest it has earned. But in some countries the bank will instead deduct a ‘withholding tax’ from any interest earned. That will start at 15 per cent but will rise in two steps to 35 per cent in six years time. It can be offset against any UK tax due. Alternatively, even in these countries you will be able to choose to have the information passed on to HMRC instead of paying the withholding tax. The countries with a withholding tax include Jersey, Guernsey, and Switzerland. In most other EU countries, information will automatically be passed to HMRC here. Find out more at www.hmrc.gov.uk/esd

October 2005