More and more people are finding themselves in legal disputes with loved ones over inheritances, new figures have revealed. According to the Ministry of Justice, 80 inheritance disputes went in front of judges in 2012. However, this figure had risen to 145 by 2017, and in 2021/22, it stood at 195 – more than double …
Between April and November 2023, HM Revenue & Customs collected £5.2 billion in inheritance tax (IHT) payments. That’s £400 million higher than in the same period last year, according to official figures. The IHT threshold is currently £325,000, or £650,000 for a married couple. So if your estate is worth more than this amount, you …
Inheritance tax has long been a controversial levy and the debate over scrapping it completely has been rumbling on for many years. So we note with interest the swirling rumours that the government is considering cutting inheritance tax and potentially scrapping it completely. According to the Sunday Times, Rishi Sunak wants to phase out the …
Average house prices rose by 5.5 per cent in the year to February 2023, according to the latest official figures, taking the average price of a property to £288,000. That’s £16,000 higher than it had been a year earlier – and this surge in house prices has had wide-ranging consequences, most notably, pricing many people …
If you have assets such as land, property, cars, money and investments, you’ll want to be sure they go to your chosen beneficiaries in the future. That way you can be sure that your loved ones have financial stability in the future and that you’ve left them a meaningful legacy. But hang on, doesn’t that …
In the past, inheritance tax would have been regarded by many only as something for the super-wealthy to have to think about. But the amount the government has collected in inheritance tax has doubled in the last decade, as more and more people are becoming liable to pay the charge. According to Treasury documents seen …
At the moment, only those who are married or who are registered civil partners are exempt from paying inheritance tax (IHT) on money or property left to them by their spouse. This was expanded to include heterosexual civil partnerships at the end of 2019. But the law does not cover siblings who are cohabiting. They …
Following an in depth study conducted by the National Centre for Social Research (NCSR) and the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), it has been discovered that only one in four people making financial gifts are aware of the risks of inheritance tax. Further to this, they found that only 45% of gifters reported being aware …
Benjamin Franklin famously said, ‘In this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes’. ‘And if your estate is valued over all the available allowances, everything above these will be taxed at 40% when you die. Even in death there’s no relief from taxes! However, there are certain steps you can …
Inheritance tax is enormously unpopular to say the least. A YouGov poll found that 59% of the public deemed it unfair, making it the least popular of Britain’s 11 major taxes. What’s more, the tax has a limited revenue raising ability, with the ‘well advised’ often using gifts, trusts, business property relief and agricultural relief …
