When changes happen at the Budget, this inevitably means a scramble to update your CRM so clients get the advice they need and your firm can seize any new opportunities. So with changes across pensions, ISAs, property and investment income at the Autumn Budget 2025, what updates do you need to make? Read up on the changes and potential related CRM actions you may wish to consider taking.
-
Pension Salary Sacrifice – new £2k a year cap
What’s changing?
From 6 April 2029, only the first £2,000 of salary sacrifice pension contributions will be exempt from National Insurance. Anything above gets hit by both employer and employee National Insurance, reducing the tax-efficiency and potentially making alternative vehicles more attractive for excess savings – particularly for higher earners.
Your CRM actions:
- Identify clients contributing more than £2,000 a year as salary sacrifice – and be aware that these contributions may not have been recorded separately in your CRM
- Review high earners (for example those earning over £100k) who may be using salary sacrifice to bring their income down so they don’t lose personal allowances and other benefits. They may need new strategies
-
Cash ISA shake-up
What’s changing?
For under-65s, the cash ISA allowance drops to £12,000 from 6 April 2027. This limit will also apply to cash held in Stocks & Shares and Innovative Finance ISAs. New rules will prevent transfers into Cash ISAs from these, require checks on ‘cash like’ investments and apply a charge on interest paid on cash in Stocks & Shares or Innovative Finance ISAs.
Existing cash in ISAs is not affected, and the rules do not apply to anyone over 65 on 6 April 2027.
Your CRM actions:
- Identify clients not using their full ISA allowance so the option of using full allowances can be raised
- Review the investment strategies of ISA clients who will be under the age of 65 in April 2027 (i.e. those under 63 in April 2025) to identify those potentially affected by the changes. Pay special attention to those with Cash ISAs or large amounts of cash in Stocks & Shares ISAs
-
Changes to personal tax
What’s changing?
From 6 April 2026, dividend tax is increasing – to a basic rate of 10.75% and higher rate of 35.75% – with changes likely to particularly affect business owners and contractors drawing most of their pay as dividends.
On the same date, non-UK residents with UK dividend, rental or partnership income will no longer be able to claim the notional tax credit, bringing them into line with UK residents.
From April 2027, tax on savings and property income rises by 2%, including distributions from Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). The new rates will be 22% for basic rate and 42% for higher rate.
Your CRM actions:
Identify clients:
- Who are business owners, shareholders and contractors (outside IR35) who may be relying on dividends
- With income from property, including REITs, as part of their investment strategy
- Who are non-UK residents with UK investment, rental or dividend income
-
£2m+ property surcharge
What’s changing?
From April 2028, homes valued at more than £2 million will attract a new, recurring ‘mansion-tax’ surcharge, which may influence decisions about ownership, restructuring, equity release or downsizing.
Your CRM actions:
- Flag clients with property valued around £2 million or more
-
Tax thresholds frozen again
What’s happening?
With income tax thresholds and allowances frozen, many clients face getting dragged into higher tax bands. Those on incomes between roughly £95,000 and £125,000 are particularly exposed as they may lose personal allowances, face higher effective taxes and potentially lose access to entitlements such as free childcare, if income from salary, bonuses and dividends increases slightly.
Your CRM actions:
- Identify clients who may fall into the ‘tax trap’, so their position can be reviewed and strategies for reducing taxable income can be considered
-
Capital Gains Tax on Employee Ownership Trusts
What’s changing?
Capital Gains Tax relief on disposals to Employee Ownership Trust (EOTs) has reduced to 50% from 100% from this Budget.
Your CRM action:
- Review business owner clients with EOTs as part of their benefits strategy or business succession planning. This data may not be readily available so an alternative might be to look at any business owners where you have previously discussed exit strategies, or whom you know may be looking to exit in the future
-
Inheritance tax changes
What’s changing?
The £1 million tax-free allowance for businesses and agricultural property, which comes into effect on 6 April 2026, will now be transferable between spouses and civil partners.
Starting from the Budget date, gifts to Trusts set up for charitable purposes but not registered as charities will no longer qualify as exempt.
Your CRM actions:
- Identify clients with business and/or agricultural property assets approaching or over the limit to identify whether inheritance tax planning should be reviewed, including the transfer of unused allowances
- If you haven’t already, identify clients whose assets – including unused pension scheme funds – could affect their inheritance tax liability
- Identify Settlors and/or Trustees of Trusts set up for charitable purposes, to review the potential impact of the changes to the treatment of gifts to these trusts as part of IHT planning
-
EIS and VCT changes
What’s changing?
From April 2026, the gross limits for companies eligible for EIS and VCT double, widening eligibility from start-ups to scale-ups.
At the same time, income tax relief for VCT investors will reduce from 30% to 20%.
Your CRM actions
- Review clients with existing VCT investments, or those considering VCTs, in case they wish to secure the 30% relief before 6 April
- Don’t forget to include both private investors and business owners in your data search
- Identify clients for whom VCTs may have been attractive, but where previously they represented a level of risk above the client’s agreed attitude to risk
So, what does it mean for me?
-
Your data
The effectiveness of any system is all about the quality of your data, and how easily your team can access and use it, whether that’s to proactively engage with clients or respond to queries.
Action points:
- Use your system’s search facilities to identify clients who may be impacted by each of the changes
- Consider adding fields or tags to client records to ensure they can be rapidly identified without having to repeat queries. Remember, if you have development, test or training environments, make the changes across all of them so that they are kept aligned
- If your system supports the creation of marketing or contact lists, add clients to relevant lists to manage communications
- Create a process to monitor contact and discussions with clients
-
Your system
Set up your colleagues for success by ensuring that the configuration of your practice management system is up-to-date and accurate.
Action points:
- Update any configuration in your user interface such as data fields, wizards/forms, fact finds, workflows and meeting note templates
- Double check that your cashflow planning tools have been updated to factor in the latest changes to things like tax bands and allowances
- Make any relevant updates to your existing centralised document templates, such as tax bands, allowances and risk warnings in your suitability letter template, or the market commentary in your valuation statement
-
Your communications
Having identified those who may be affected by the changes, engagement is key.
Action points:
Decide on the best approach – letter, email, newsletter, or phone.
- For letter or email, create template correspondence that includes mail merge or client-specific data
- Where feasible, include all information relevant to the client to avoid the need for multiple communications
- Create a new project or utilise existing workflows to manage and monitor the follow-up
- Upload content to your website, such as downloadable newsletters or budget commentary
We hope you found this post-Budget CRM action list useful. Please do get in touch if you’d like to hear more about how Evotra can help you get the best from your CRM. You can call us on 020 3410 1966 or email hello@evotra.co.uk
Written by:
Richard Stanton: Consultant
Brett Dowsett: Consultant