07.04.26
Fresh Start, New Rules
The new tax year opened on 6 April with a wave of changes. Here is what reset, what rose, and what you need to know before the new financial year gets away from you.
A NEW TAX YEAR BRINGS DIVIDEND RISES AND FRESH ALLOWANCES, MAKING TAX DIGITAL GOES LIVE, SCHIAPARELLI OPENS AT THE V&A, AND WOMEN LANDSCAPE PAINTERS GET THEIR MOMENT AT THE COURTAULD. YOUR WEEK, DIGESTED BY DURA.
MONEY MATTERS
Your allowances have reset. Use them early.
From 6 April, the 2026/27 tax year is open and your full 20,000 ISA allowance is available again, alongside a fresh 60,000 pension annual allowance and 3,000 capital gains tax exemption. The case for investing your ISA allowance early in the tax year rather than leaving it to March is simple: the longer your money sits inside a tax-efficient wrapper, the longer it compounds free of income tax and capital gains tax. Given that dividend tax rates rose on 6 April and the wrapper is becoming more valuable, not less, there is no good reason to wait.
Dividend tax rises from today
From 6 April, tax on dividends rose by two percentage points for basic and higher rate taxpayers: basic rate moves from 8.75% to 10.75%, higher rate from 33.75% to 35.75%. For anyone holding dividend-paying shares or funds outside an ISA wrapper, this is a meaningful increase in the annual tax bill. The effect is immediate and applies to all dividends received from this week onwards. If you have not already reviewed how much of your portfolio sits outside a tax-efficient structure, this is the prompt to do so.
Making Tax Digital launches for landlords and the self-employed
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax came into force on 6 April for sole traders and landlords with gross income above 50,000. From now, digital record-keeping and quarterly submissions to HMRC via approved software are mandatory, in addition to the annual tax return. The first quarterly report is due by 7 August. HMRC is not providing its own software for this, so if you fall into scope and have not yet set up a compatible system, this is urgent. The penalty regime does not kick in until April 2027, but the submission obligations apply now.
Business property relief changes are live
From 6 April, the 100% inheritance tax relief on business and agricultural property is capped at a combined 2.5 million per person, with 50% relief on value above that. For family businesses and farms, this is a significant shift from the previous position of uncapped 100% relief. Crucially, unused allowance is transferable between spouses, which may open estate planning opportunities. AIM shares now attract only 50% business relief, down from 100%. If you hold AIM shares or have business assets forming part of your estate plan, these changes warrant a fresh conversation with your adviser.
A new tax year is not just an administrative event. It is the best moment of the year to review, reset, and make decisions that compound over time.
CULTURE AND LIFE
Schiaparelli at the V&A: go now before it sells out
Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art has been open at the V&A since late March and is already one of the most talked-about exhibitions in London. Over 200 objects span a century of the house, from Elsa Schiaparelli's surrealist collaborations with Salvador Dali in the 1930s through to Daniel Roseberry's contemporary haute couture. The Skeleton dress, the Tears dress, the shoe hat conceived with Dali: the highlights are extraordinary. Running until November, so there is time, but weekend tickets are already selling fast. Weekdays are quieter and considerably cheaper at 28.
Women landscape painters at the Courtauld
The Courtauld is currently running two exhibitions worth combining in a single visit. Seurat and the Sea is the headline, the first UK show dedicated to the pointillist master in nearly three decades. But the companion exhibition, A View of One's Own, makes the trip particularly relevant for a Dura audience: it spotlights landscapes by British women artists from 1760 to 1860, a period when women were largely written out of the canonical history of the genre. Free with Courtauld admission and worth an hour of any art lover's time.
Veronica Ryan at the Whitechapel Gallery
Turner Prize winner Veronica Ryan opened a major career retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery on 1 April, running until June. Ryan's work recreates everyday commodities, tea, oranges, vanilla pods, as small-scale sculptures that quietly reframe the hidden histories of colonial trade. Over 100 works span her practice across sculpture, textiles and paper, including recently rediscovered pieces from the 1980s. One of the more thoughtful and absorbing shows of the spring. Tickets from 15.
ON THE HORIZON
10 April: Queen Elizabeth II at the King's Gallery
Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style opens at the King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace on 10 April and runs until October. The exhibition traces the late Queen's style across all ten decades of her life, from childhood through to her final years, including the crinoline-skirted gown worn for Princess Margaret's wedding in 1960. A rare and intimate look at a life lived almost entirely in public.
18 April: V&A East Museum opens
The most anticipated cultural opening of the year arrives on 18 April in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The V&A East Museum's inaugural exhibition, The Music is Black: A British Story, traces 125 years of Black British music from jazz to grime. The permanent Why We Make galleries are free. Worth the journey east, and worth booking ahead for the main exhibition.
30 April: Bank of England rate decision
The MPC meets on 30 April for its next interest rate decision. A hold at 3.75% remains the base case for most economists, though the language of the statement will be closely watched for any shift in tone on inflation, which is expected to rise as the energy price shock from the Iran conflict feeds through into the data over the coming months.
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