THE raising of the inheritance tax threshold, as outlined in Alistair Darling's Pre-Budget Report, has been met with mixed responses from financial commentators.
The Chancellor has promised to allow married couples and civil partnerships to transfer their IHT allowance to their surviving spouse, effectively giving a combined allowance of £600,000. Issues of policy theft aside, Nigel May, tax principal at chartered accountants MacIntyre Hudson, said the changes would simply bring together two allowances that already exist. “Any married couple receiving advice about reducing their inheritance tax bill would have been able to use both allowances by either passing on assets or using a nil-rate discretionary trust on the death of the first spouse,” h...
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