Reduce the Inheritance Tax burden for your family
Prudent planning helps your estate legally avoid paying too much tax
Bespoke service
free appointment
local will writer
bespoke service
free appointment
local will writer
Inheritance tax headaches that leave your family with less
Your estate pays inheritance tax that could have been avoided.
Your Will didn’t make the most of available tax reliefs.
You pass an inheritance tax burden to children and grandchildren.
Unmarried couples’ families could pay inheritance tax twice.
Property has to be sold to pay an inheritance tax bill.
Prudent Inheritance tax planning starts now
The amount of inheritance tax you pay depends on the value of your estate when you die.
That makes it important to have a carefully written Will that makes use of all of the available exemptions and allowances.
But there’s also plenty you can do to reduce the size of your estate while you’re alive. There are time limits for doing this, the earlier you can do this the better.
We’ll explain the inheritance tax allowances as they apply to your Will, as well as potential solutions to reduce your inheritance tax liability.
Carefully crafted wills
Make the most of inheritance tax exemptions for spouses, business, agriculture and charities.
Trusts for rental properties
Once in Trust, the value is outside of your estate after 7 years.
understand IHT thresholds
Knowing how much you can pass on means you can plan effectively.
Take action to minimise your Inheritance Tax liability today
FREE APPOINTMENT
The first meeting is a free-of-charge discussion about estate planning, including inheritance tax.
quick and easy
The initial meeting lasts an hour; in that time we can capture most of the information needed.
No hidden costs
We’ll tell you the total cost of Wills and trusts up front, before you commit to anything.
Three steps to prudent Inheritance Tax planning
1
book an appointment
Pick a time and date to suit your diary.
2
discuss your needs
Tell me about your circumstances and assets.
3
sign your documents
Your documents are valid once signed and witnessed.
Three steps to prudent Inheritance Tax planning
Step 1: Book an appointment
Pick a time and date to suit your diary.
Step 2: Discuss your needs
Tell me about your circumstances and assets.
Step 3: Sign your documents
Your documents are valid once they’re signed and witnessed.
Let me simplify Inheritance Tax for you
If you think that inheritance tax seems very confusing, rest assured you’re not alone. It actually is confusing! But that’s mainly because there are so many different aspects to it.
First there’s the allowance that you can pass on when you die. I’ll tell you about this in our first meeting. I’ll give you an idea of whether or not you’re under that threshold, which is called the nil rate band, today.
Second, there are exemptions and reliefs you can get with a carefully written Will, including tax relief for spouses and civil partners. I can include these if they are appropriate to your circumstances.
And third, there’s action you can take during your lifetime. You can gift away assets and money, put rental property in Trust, and use inheritance-tax friendly investments.
The starting point for reducing inheritance tax is to discuss your circumstances and assets. Request a callback to book a time for a chat.
As a member of the Institute of Professional Willwriters (IPW), a professional body, and the national Maplebrook EDGE® Network, I receive regular training to keep me up to speed.
Graham Southorn, MIPW
Bristol Wills & Estate Planning is proud to be a member of:
Google reviews from people we’ve helped
Great service and everything was made very quick and easy. Thanks
Sarah
Excellent service and an efficient and easy process.
Tom
Graham made the whole process simple and straightforward while being ultra helpful and informative.
Steve
You can avoid paying too much (or any) Inheritance Tax
The key point of Inheritance Tax is that it’s almost always avoidable, provided that you plan far enough ahead. And that is worth knowing, considering that the rate of Inheritance Tax is 40%!
The starting point is understanding how much you can pass on when you die without paying Inheritance Tax. Currently, this amount is fixed for every individual at £325,000, known as the nil rate band.
Incidentally, the nil rate band has been frozen at £325,000 since 2009! It seems unlikely that it will be any more generous in the near future!
However, there are some additional allowances and exemptions to take into account. There’s an extra nil rate band worth £175,000 for passing on property to descendants.
And if you’re married, anything passing to your spouse is exempt from inheritance tax, thanks to the so-called “spousal exemption”. This is where it gets complicated, but the surviving spouse can also utilise their late partner’s “unused” nil rate band (we can explain how this works!).
The amount that exceeds your combined nil rate bands is taxed at 40%.
That could be a lot, but there’s plenty you can do during your lifetime to get your estate under this value. For starters, you can give away up to £3,000 per year free of inheritance tax.
The Gov.uk website explains this and other exemptions, including gifts out of your regular income and gifts for special occasions like birthdays and weddings.
Plus, you may have heard of the 7-year rule. Assets you give away are outside of your estate after years. Putting it another way, if you give something away in the 7-year period before your death, some or all of it will still be counted as part of your estate value.
You don’t necessarily have to give away assets to a person get them outside of your estate. Financial advisers will be able to tell you about inheritance tax-friendly investments, albeit ones that might be considered riskier than regular investments.
For property, you can use Trusts for rental properties. The value can be outside of your estate after 7 years if certain conditions are met. (Plus, trustees can defer Capital Gains Tax).
Finally, when you die, your Wills and Trusts should be written to make the most of any inheritance tax exemptions that could apply to you:
- The exemption for spouses, as mentioned earlier.
- Gifts to charities and certain other organisations that are exempt.
- Trusts for business assets to ensure your spouse’s allowance isn’t used up.
- Lifetime Trusts can be written with the nil rate band for property in mind.
People often complain about inheritance tax. Surveys regularly show that it’s our most hated tax.
And yet people often complain about the rich and famous who use legal means to avoid it. Like the Duke of Westminster, whose family paid no inheritance tax on an estate worth £9 billion.
And yet the Duke and other elites of society have done nothing wrong. They used existing, perfectly legal methods of avoiding inheritance tax, and you can use those same methods for your own family.
Don’t leave it too late!