Inheritance Tax and the 2020 Budget
After several months of noise regarding changes to inheritance tax Rishi Sunak’s budget avoided even tentative adjustments to the tax altogether. Headline predictions included a reduction of the rate from 40% to 10%, removal of lifetime gifting allowances, and the…
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Trust Registration Obligations: Update Early March 2020
“The immanent extension of the online UK Trust Registration Service (TRS) to cover express trusts without any tax consequences, under the EU Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD), is likely to extend the number of registrable trusts from around 200,000…
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HMRC sets up opaque unit to probe inheritance tax avoidance
HM Revenue & Customs has created a somewhat secretive and shadowy unit to investigate the use of family investment companies , sometimes known as FIC’s, to avoid paying inheritance tax. The unit was set up the team in April…
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Inheritance Tax in the New Era
Inheritance Tax in the New Era: 2020 When Sajid Javid, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, hinted at the 2019 Conservative Party conference that scrapping inheritance tax ‘was on his mind’ he was merely taking his place in a long…
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Death & Taxes – The Real Origins of the Phrase (it’s not what you think)
It was on November 13th, 1789, that Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy a phrase that has reverberated ever since: “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this…
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The best way to gift cash to grandchildren?
It is often the way of things that those involved in inheritance tax planning overlook the simple and straightforward. Part of the reason undoubtedly lies in the discipline needed to make regular gifts over many years. For those who have…
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Are Trustees Ready for 10 March 2020??? The Stakes Are High!!!
As the number of trusts and estates have continued to fall, trustees should be taking advice about the increasing scope of the trust register, as implied in my post of 1 October. Trustees now have less than six months tp prepare…
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Is this the end of a centuries-long era for trusts?
Statistics released by HMRC this week show a fourth consecutive year of decline in the number of trusts in the UK. This is the continuation of a trend which over the last decade or so has seen the total number…
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HMRC achieves a record levels of inheritance tax
There has been a 15% hike in the number of estates liable to pay inheritance tax in recent years and HMRC has been the beneficiary – to the tune of a record-breaking £5.4bn in 2018/19 According to figures released in…
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Capital Gains Tax overhaul ‘to raise £90bn’?
Bringing taxation on assets in line with the regime for income tax could raise £90bn over five years, according to a recent report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) which is calling for the removal of the capital…
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