Trusting times

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John Hancock takes a look at the different ways to mitigate inheritance tax

Much has been written about the changes to the inheritance tax (IHT) treatment of trusts post-22 March 2006. But what about the headline IHT-planning solutions, typically offered by life companies, which are based on these underlying trusts - solutions such as a whole of life policy to provide for the tax? The reality is that, at a high level, these 'solutions', and their target market, remain the same. If we rewind to the relatively straightforward days pre-22 March 2006, the same 'solutions' existed from life companies as do today. The difference was that the trust wrapper choice was, b...

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