Investors are 'sleepwalking' into a dividend tax shock

If you've been quietly pocketing your dividends each year without a second thought for the taxman, I've got some bad news: the Treasury is about to take a far bigger slice of the pie than you might expect. Thanks to two sharp cuts to the dividend allowance in as many years, first down to £1,000 in April 2023, then halved again to £500 in April 2024, the number of people paying dividend tax has exploded. In the current tax year, a whopping 3.7 million people will be caught in the net, more than double the number from just four years ago. You might think this is only a problem for the w...