IHT Planning
Inheritance Tax planning is simply about planning in advance to avoid a tax on assets you have built up during your lifetime. There are a variety of tools available to you here, but our objective with this type of planning is to avoid unnecessary cost and to plan for any realistic eventuality.
A starting point for estate planning is to ensure that your Will is up to date and tax efficient.
The standard approach is to use retirement income to buy an insurance policy to pay off the Inland Revenue when you die. Inheritance Tax (or IHT) planning will amount to a delicate exercise of structuring your estate now (typically by placing assets in Trust now or in the future), whilst ensuring that the capital and income you may require for your retirement planning in the future is more than covered.
The 2004 Finance Act contained provisions that impose an income tax charge on donors who have made lifetime gifts of substantial assets with a view to avoiding Inheritance Tax on such assets, but who continue to enjoy the assets after the gift without paying to do so.
