Inheritance Tax Planning
Planning for your legacy and your family's inheritance
Planning for your legacy and your family's inheritance
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Ensuring you have thought about those left behind after your death and helping the beneficiaries of your estate involves careful financial planning. There are a number of steps you can take to mitigate tax liabilities on your death and good planning can minimise the tax burden on your estate.
Without advice and careful financial planning, HM Revenue and Customs can become the single largest beneficiary of your estate following your death.
The levels and bases of taxation and reliefs from taxation can change at any time. The value of any tax relief depends on individual circumstances.
Death duties have been with us for centuries, in the guise of Estate Duty, Capital Transfer Tax and now Inheritance Tax (IHT). Irrespective of the name used, the purpose has always and will always be the same; to raise revenue from the estates of citizens.
Once considered a tax on the truly affluent, IHT now affects more estates than ever. It will undoubtedly come as a shock to discover that a large proportion of your wealth, which includes all of your assets such as the family home, investments including Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), proceeds from life assurance plans, not in trust, and even old family heirlooms might actually have to be sold in order to meet the tax liability on death.
The first £325,000 of an individual’s estate (referred to as the nil rate band) is taxed at 0% and is not therefore liable to IHT.
The entire estate in excess of the nil-rate band is potentially taxed at a flat rate of 40% assuming no charitable bequests.
From 6 April 2020, each person now gets an additional £175,000 allowance to use against the value of their home if passed to a direct descendant (subject to conditions).
The levels and bases of taxation, and reliefs from taxation, can change at any time and are generally dependent on individual circumstances.
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