The importance of estate planning - Jack Ross Chartered Accountants

We are all somewhat used to living with economic doom and gloom at present. This includes sky-high inflation rates to tax rises being splashed across the news headlines. But recent analysis from the Office of Budget Responsibility shows that you may also get stung harder after you are gone without proper planning.

They estimate that HMRC inheritance tax takings are set to rise to £37 billion cumulatively over the next five years. That’s compared to £26.7bn for the previous five years to and including the 2021/22 tax year. The rise will be driven by inflation, and the freezing of the thresholds at which inheritance tax becomes payable.

This means that more people, and more of their wealth, get drawn into the scope of inheritance tax.

The good news is there are numerous planning strategies for managing inheritance tax liability. With a little savvy planning, many people are able to take themselves out of its scope completely. At the very least you can reduce its impact significantly.

Inheritance tax rules (IHT)

The standard rate of inheritance tax is 40%. However, with careful planning it is possible to significantly reduce your potential IHT exposure. This is thanks to a series of allowances and exemptions.

The most significant of these is your inheritance tax allowance, known as the nil-rate band. This allows the first £325,000 of your estate to be paid free from inheritance tax.

There is an additional nil-rate band for your primary residence of £175,000 known as the Residence Nil Rate Band (RNRB). This is relevant if you leave it to direct descendants (including adopted, foster or stepchildren), their descendants and their spouses.

Furthermore, inheritance tax is not payable on assets left to a spouse or civil partner. Indeed, they can carry over your nil rate band unused allowances, meaning a married couple (or rather their beneficiaries) enjoy a £650,000 inheritance tax allowance, or £1 million if the primary residence nil-rate bands are also available.

However, assets passing to children or other beneficiaries may be subject to IHT.

Anything left to charities or community amateur sports clubs is also exempt from inheritance tax.

Lifetime Inheritance Planning

Gifts

Once you understand the above allowances, gift giving is another effective tactic for reducing inheritance tax liability.

You are entitled to gift up to £3,000 per annum and make any number of smaller gifts (below £250) without it affecting your available NRB. In addition to this, you can make gifts in consideration of marriage (£5,000, £2,000 or £1,000) depending on who is getting married.

But the bigger opportunity potentially comes from regular gifting, and utilising the seven-year rule.

Normally, if you give money away within seven years of your death and it does not fall within one of the above gift exemptions it is treated as if it remains within your estate for inheritance tax purposes.

Gifts of Outcome

However, regular gifting rules say that if you gift money regularly out of your surplus income after you have met all your own living costs, there is no limit to how much you can give tax-free.

The Seven Year Rule.

Usually, anything you gift away and survive seven years after is outside your estate for IHT purposes.

A system of tapering applies if you do not survive for seven years,

Zero to three years – 40%
Three to four years – 32%
Four to five years – 24%
Five to six years – 16%
Six to seven years – 8%
Seven or more years – 0%

To qualify, you must give the gift without reservation. This means you have no right over the gift and cannot benefit from it unless you are paying a market value.

So, if you gift a house you cannot live in it unless you were to pay market rent. If you gifted a painting, you could not continue to hang it on your wall. If you gifted money, you would have to make clear that it was not a loan which you expected to be repaid.

But other than this, there’s no limit. So, as part of a long-term strategy, gifting is a highly effective way to reduce inheritance tax liability.

Wills and Death Planning

If understanding how inheritance tax works is one important piece of the puzzle, making a will is another.

While a good gifting strategy can help your estate sidestep inheritance tax while you are still alive, a will can help your estate manage the liability after your death.

It’s your opportunity to specify exactly how your estate is apportioned after you die. While the primary driver of this is usually to ensure assets go to the right people, there can be unwelcome tax consequences that are realised if you do not have a will.

If you do not have a will, your estate is subject to intestacy law. This is highly prescribed, and often assets are not distributed how you might imagine. We are focused on estate planning here, so won’t go into detail about the family arguments that might arise as a result.

But to illustrate just one consequence of intestacy, your spouse may not automatically get all your estate without a will in place – even if you wanted them to.

Intestacy says that a spouse gets all the personal belongings plus the first £270,000 of the estate. Then, if there are surviving children, the excess of the estate above £270,000 is split – with 50% going to the spouse and 50% to be shared equally amongst the children (including those from previous relationships if applicable).

Because any estate left to a spouse is not subject to inheritance tax, intestacy could yield a tax bill where none needed be due if it diverted assets away from a spouse.

Other considerations

Gifts to Charity

We have already mentioned that anything left to charities is exempt from inheritance tax. It is also possible to pay a reduced rate of 36% inheritance tax on some assets if you leave at least 10% of the net value of your estate to a qualifying charity.

Life Insurance

For some people, a life insurance pay-out may be made and become part of their estate. This could then be significantly reduced by inheritance tax. There is a simple way to avoid this, which is by making sure the life insurance policy is written in trust.

Most insurers give you the choice automatically when policies are taken out, so you can check if this was selected. Even if it wasn’t, you can put a policy into trust at any time, although you may need professional help.

Pensions

Furthermore, consider that pensions can in some cases be passed on to beneficiaries without being subject to inheritance tax. This is not the primary purpose of a pension and they are subject to complex rules. However, it may be useful to know for some.

Trusts

Wills incorporating trusts should be considered. They can provide more flexibility to consider the personal, tax, financial or matrimonial position of your beneficiaries as it may be at any point in the future.

Lasting Powers of Attorney

A Lasting Power of Attorney allows you to plan ahead. You can chose Attorneys to make decisions on your behalf if you lack capacity to make such decisions your self.

There are two types of document: