Flying down to London this morning I was in need of something to read and grabbed a complimentary copy of the Daily Express. In its pages was the ongoing campaign against the so-called "death tax".
It caught my eye because it is a misnomer and misrepresents the way in which IHT (inheritance tax) works, and especially so following the changes in the last Finance Act. Inheritance tax is not a death tax but as the name suggests, a tax on inheritances. This means that tax is payable on death and on certain gifts during ones lifetime, the scope for tax on lifetime gifts has considerably widened with the decision to treat flexible interest in possession trusts as discretionary trusts. This change has meant that IFAs have gone through and are going through a period of reassessment about th...
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