Recent research has show that close to 50 million pounds was paid out shareholders in the form of dividends, in many cases just a few days before the end of the tax year on April 6. Experts believe that many UK companies are employing this tactic as a means to help some of their big-income employees who are also shareholders to avoid the rise in the rate of income tax. If this is the case, it could cost the Treasury as much as £85 million pounds. Analysts estimate that the main "offenders" are directors in small to medium sized companies who want to minimise the effect of the soon to be effective 50 percent tax rate, due to their greater flexibility over returns.

A rise in UK retail sales, albeit a minor one has been reported for March by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) According to the ONS, retail sales volumes during the month grew by 0.4% from February, which is less than the 0.6% analysts had expected. Sales improved in February after a very poor January, report with retail sales being hard hit by the icy weather.

Financial panics are indeed dramatic and, for many private individuals and economic policymakers, traumatic. They are rarely of lasting significance to the fate of nations or their
currencies, however, as the prompt recovery of Korea, Mexico, and Russia from their travails a decade ago demonstrates—as indeed does the lack of any lasting impact from the United States’ closing of the “gold window” on the dollar’s standing or on U.S. economic performance, Adam S. Posen, the Deputy Director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics writes:

Though such calm is difficult to maintain while the United States experiences a panic in its many interlocking asset-backed securities markets, following years of large current
account deficits and a concurrent sell-off of the dollar against the euro, it would be a mistake to read too much into recent developments.