Without Inheritance Tax (IHT) planning, you could find your estate suffering a sizeable liability. Indeed, it is quite possible that if action is not taken, the Inland Revenue could become the largest beneficiary of your estate.
By making a balanced assessment of your circumstances now, and planning carefully, it is possible to legitimately avoid a substantial amount of IHT.
Before considering the possible solutions, it is essential that you assess the nature and scale of your own IHT problem.
- Firstly, you should review your current and future income requirements. If these are satisfactory you are in a position to consider ways of mitigating your IHT problem.
- Secondly, you should assess the value of your estate.
- Finally, you should identify those people to whom you wish your assets to pass when you die.
Having completed these three steps, we will be in a position to consider the solutions available and to adopt those which best fit your personal situation. Careful planning will enable you to reduce, eliminate or provide for any liability to IHT.
The FSA does not regulate some forms of Inheritance Tax Planning.