Protecting your assets

Prior to the pre-Budget statement in October 2007, which saw the introduction of the transferable nil rate band for married couples or civil partners, discretionary trusts were common place for IHT planning in order to utilise the nil rate band. Although, unsurprisingly, we have seen a decline in the use of discretionary trusts for this purpose since late 2007, we have, however, seen a significant increase in the use of discretionary trusts for asset protection purposes. The nil rate band is now fixed at £325,000 until 2014/15 which means that using current figures, £650,000 could p...