Personal tax planning is the quiet work of keeping more of what you already earn, legally, and without ever letting the tax tail wag the investment dog. Most of it is about allowances, thresholds and the order in which you use your money’s wrappers.
What a tax-planning adviser actually does
The mechanics are unglamorous. An adviser checks that you are actually using your £12,570 personal allowance, your £20,000 ISA subscription, your pension annual allowance and, for couples, each spouse’s separate bands, before money ever lands in a taxable account. They look at the order of your wrappers: an ISA before a general investment account (GIA), and a pension first of all where the relief is richest. They look at whose name an asset sits in, because moving an income-producing holding to a lower-rate spouse is one of the simplest legitimate savings there is.
This is distinct from inheritance tax planning, which concerns what eventually leaves your estate. Personal tax planning is about what you keep each year while you are alive, income tax, capital gains, and the handful of smaller allowances most people quietly forfeit.
The single biggest lever is the pension. A contribution attracts relief at your marginal rate, and paying it by salary sacrifice saves National Insurance too. For a higher earner it can even reclaim a personal allowance that tax would otherwise have swallowed whole.
The £100k–£125,140 band: the 60% trap
Between £100,000 and £125,140 of income your personal allowance is withdrawn at £1 for every £2 you earn. You pay 40% on that income and lose tax-free allowance as you go, an effective marginal rate of around 60% on that slice, the sharpest rate in the whole system. A pension contribution or Gift Aid donation that brings your adjusted income back below £100,000 restores the allowance pound for pound, so the true cost of saving into the pension can be startlingly low.
The wider point is that the small allowances have shrunk hard. The table below is where most planning starts; our tax guides work through each line.
Key personal allowances and thresholds, 2025/26
| Allowance / threshold | Amount | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Personal allowance | £12,570 | Tax-free income; withdrawn between £100k and £125,140 |
| Higher-rate threshold | £50,270 | 40% income tax begins above this |
| ISA allowance | £20,000 | No tax on income or gains inside the wrapper |
| Pension annual allowance | £60,000 | Relief at your marginal rate; sacrifice saves NI |
| Capital gains exempt amount | £3,000 | Down from £12,300 recently |
| Dividend allowance | £500 | Then 8.75%–39.35% by band |
| Personal savings allowance | £1,000 / £500 / £0 | By basic, higher, additional rate |
Tax planning must never drive an otherwise bad investment decision. The relief is the seasoning, not the meal.
Who needs it, and who doesn’t
If your income sits comfortably in the basic-rate band, your savings interest fits inside the personal savings allowance, and you already fill your ISA, you may not need paid advice at all. Tax planning earns its keep when the numbers get lumpy: income crossing £100,000, a large one-off capital gain, dividends from your own company, a redundancy payment, or two spouses with very different tax rates.
You can likely do it yourself
- Income safely inside the basic-rate band
- ISA already used, no taxable GIA
- Savings interest under your personal savings allowance
- No capital gains above £3,000 in the year
Advice usually pays for itself
- Income in or near the £100k–£125,140 taper
- A large gain to realise across tax years
- Dividends or salary from your own company
- Spouses on different rates who could share income
It is also worth being blunt about the line between planning and avoidance. Using your ISA, your pension relief and your spouse’s allowances is exactly what Parliament intended. Contrived schemes that exist only to manufacture an artificial loss are another matter: they frequently collapse under challenge, and HMRC can reclaim the tax with interest and penalties years later. A properly vetted adviser keeps you well clear of them.
What it costs, and how we’re paid
A regulated adviser typically charges either a fixed fee for a defined piece of work, a one-off tax review, say, or an ongoing fee of around 0.5% to 1% a year where they also manage your investments. Initial advice is often quoted at 1% to 3%. A good adviser will tell you plainly whether you need a single fix or continuing stewardship.
Vetted Wealth is free to you
We are an introducer, not an adviser. The vetted firms pay us, so you pay us nothing. Any advice fee is agreed directly with the adviser you choose and disclosed in writing before you commit a penny.
How we vet the advisers we introduce
Every adviser we introduce is FCA-regulated and independently checked before they reach you, permissions, disciplinary history, qualifications and complaints record. We only match you with firms we would use ourselves, whether you are in Devon, Cornwall or elsewhere in the UK. You stay in control: we give the information, you choose the adviser, and any personal recommendation comes from them under their own regulated responsibility.
Key takeaways
- The £100k–£125,140 band carries a hidden ~60% marginal rate; pension contributions are the usual escape.
- Fill tax-advantaged wrappers in order: pension where relief is richest, then ISA, then a taxable GIA.
- CGT (£3,000), dividend (£500) and savings allowances have shrunk, using each spouse’s bands matters more than ever.
- Legitimate planning uses the allowances Parliament created; avoidance schemes are a different, dangerous thing.
- Never let a tax saving push you into an investment you would not otherwise make.
Where we operate
Vetted Wealth is live across Devon and Cornwall, with further counties opening through 2026. Choose your county to see the towns we cover and the advisers we have vetted there.
Most people start on their county page and then pick their town. If you would rather skip that, use the form on this page, tell us where you are and we will match you with a vetted tax planning specialist near you.
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