Tax Planning

Checklist for Protecting your Family’s Finances

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Checklist for Protecting your Family’s Finances

Create an estate plan

Estate planning isn’t only for the wealthy. There are various ways you can minimise Inheritance Tax like gifting or utilising pensions and trusts.

Protect against illness and death

We can help select the right products for you and your family’s needs.

Write or review your Will

Ensure your money and assets go to the people and causes you care about.

Get in touch

For more information on our inheritance tax planning services, please get in touch.

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Inheritance Tax Planning Services

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Head of Estate Planning and Chartered Financial Planner, Mark Chandler, outlines our tax planning services and inheritance tax planning services including making a Will, trusts and probate.

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Tax Year End

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Tax Year End Checklist – Have you made use of your 2022/23 Allowances?

  • ISA allowance: £20,000pa
  • Junior ISA allowance: £9,000pa
  • Pension annual allowance: £40,000*pa (*or 100% of your earning and this allowance varies for higher rate tax payers and business owners.)
  • Check your carry-forward pension allowance
  • Check your pension lifetime allowance status (£1,073,100)

For more information on our tax planning services, please get in touch.

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Retirement and Tax Planning

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Managing Director and Chartered Financial Planner, Michael Cope, discusses tax planning in retirement.

For more information on our retirement planning services or our tax planning services, please get in touch.

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Taxing Times

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Time for a tax health check?

With the current tax year having begun on 6 April 2022, the clock is ticking and it is important to utilise all the tax reliefs and allowances available to you before 5 April 2023 in order to minimise any potential liabilities.

Personal tax planning should be at the top of your agenda as the end of the current tax year is not too far away. Taking action now may give you the opportunity to take advantage of any remaining reliefs, allowances and exemptions.

At the same time, you should be considering whether there are any planning opportunities that you need to consider either for this tax year or for your long-term future. We’ve listed a few reminders of the issues you may want to consider as worthy of including in your 2022/23 tax health check to-do list.

Some key things you might need to action before the tax year end

1. Personal reliefs

Married couples should consider utilising each person’s personal reliefs, as well as their starting and basic rate tax bands. Could you make gifts of income-producing assets (which must be outright and unconditional) to distribute income more evenly between you both?

2. Salary sacrifice

This is an especially tax-efficient way for you to make pension contributions, to save and reduce your Income Tax and National Insurance.
Have you considered exchanging part of your salary for payments into an approved share scheme or additional pension contributions?

3. Pensions annual allowance

Unless you are an additional rate taxpayer or have already accessed pension benefits then you are entitled to make up to £40,000 of pension contributions per tax year. Have you fully utilised your tax-efficient contributions for this tax year or any unused allowances from the three previous tax years?

4. Stakeholder pensions

A stakeholder pension is available to any United Kingdom resident under the age of 75. Children can also make annual net contributions of £2,880 per year, making the gross amount £3,600 regardless of any earnings. It is also a very beneficial way of giving children or grandchildren a helping hand for the future. Is this an option you or a family member should be utilising?

5. Large pension funds

The Pension Lifetime Allowance (LTA) is currently £1,073,100 and has been frozen at this level until the 2025/26 tax year. The maximum you can pay in is £40,000 per annum unless you pay tax at 45% in which case the annual limit could be as low as £4,000. Inflationary increases by the end of the current tax year could also have an impact on your pension funds. Do you have a plan in place to protect your money from this?

6. Pension drawdown

If your are 55 or over you could access 25% tax-free cash from your Defined Contribution (also known as Money Purchase) pension pots and invest the rest. However, drawing large amounts in one tax year can lead to a larger tax bill than if spread over a longer period. Do you know the implications of taking money out of your pension pots?

7. Passing on your pension

Usually called a ‘spousal by-pass trust’, although the recipient may not always be a spouse, this is a discretionary trust set up by the pension scheme member or pension holder to receive pension death benefits. Are your pension death benefits written in trust?

8. Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs)

An ISA allows you to save and invest tax-efficiently into a cash savings or investment account. The proceeds are shielded from Income Tax,
tax on dividends and Capital Gains Tax. The government puts a cap on how much you can put into your ISA or ISAs in any tax year (from 6 April to 5 April). The ISA allowance for 2022/23 is set at £20,000. Have you fully utilised the maximum annual allowance?

9. Junior ISAs

This is a long-term tax-efficient savings account set up by a parent or guardian, specifically for the child’s future. Only the child can access the money, and only once they turn 18. Have you invested the maximum £9,000 allowance for your child or children?

10. Lifetime ISAs (LISAs)

The Lifetime ISA (LISA) is a tax-efficient savings or investments account designed to help those aged 18 to 39 at the time of opening to buy their first home or save for retirement. The government will provide a 25% bonus on the money invested, up to a maximum of £1,000 per year. You can save up to £4,000 a year, and can continue to pay into it until you reach age 50. Could you be taking advantage of this very tax-efficient option?

11. Capital Gains Tax (CGT)

There are two different rates of CGT – one for property and one for other assets. If your assets are owned jointly with another person, you could use both of your allowances, which can effectively double the amount you can make before CGT is payable. If you are married or in a registered civil partnership, you are free to transfer assets to each other without any CGT being charged. It is currently £12,300 but will be reduced to £6,000 from 6 April 2023 and £3,000 from 6 April 2024. Have you fully used your current £12,300 annual exemption?

12. Inheritance Tax (IHT) relief

IHT must be paid on the value of any estate above £325,000, or up to £1 million for married couples including the residence nil-rate band). However, certain business assets, including some types of shares and farmland, in private trading companies can qualify for 100% relief from IHT. The government has frozen the IHT thresholds for two more years to April 2028. Are you taking advantage of the reliefs available to you?

13. Residence nil-rate band (RNRB)

This allowance was introduced during the 2017/18 tax year and is available when a main residence is passed on death to a direct descendant. The allowance is currently £175,000. When combined with the nil-rate band of £325,000, this provides a total IHT exemption of £500,000 per person, or £1 million per married couple. If you are planning to give away your home to your children or grandchildren (including adopted, foster and stepchildren) the RNRB must be claimed. There is a form for this purpose – IHT435. The form is available on the Gov.uk website. If applicable, have you applied for the RNRB?

14. Charitable and personal gifts

If you leave at least 10% of your net estate to charity a reduced inheritance rate of 36% applies rather than the usual 40%. Other exemptions apply for inter-spousal transfers, transfers of unused annual income, business and agricultural assets, and for various other fixed, small amounts. Are you intending to make gifts before the end of the current tax year?

15. Trust funds

These help protect your assets and guarantee that your loved ones have financial stability for their future. Crucially, a trust can help to avoid IHT and ensure that the majority of your money, shares and equity are passed on in the most efficient way. Should you consider setting up a trust? Future legislation could potentially result in changes to tax law, which could in turn require adjustments to your plans.

Want to talk about a tax health check?

We hope you find this checklist useful, but please bear in mind that this only provides a summary of the options available and not all options will be suitable for everyone. Therefore, for more information in respect of the ideas outlined, please contact us.

A pension is a long-term investment not normally accessible until age 55 (57 from April 2028 unless plan has a protected pension age). The value of your investments (and any income from them) can go down as well as up which would have an impact on the level of pension benefits available. Your pension income could also be affected by the interest rates at the time you take your benefits. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested. The financial conduct authority does not regulate taxation and trust advice. Trusts are a highly complex area of financial planning.

 

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Financial Gifting

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The rule of seven when making financial gifts

There are many ways you might be able to reduce (or even eliminate) a potential liability.

But the longer you wait, the more expensive some of these options might prove.

It goes without saying that none of us know when our time will come.

That’s why it can really help to start making plans now. Doing so could help you maximise the amount of inheritance you leave to loved ones.

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Financial Gifts

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We discuss what gifting is, what types of gifts there are and what is meant by potentially exempt transfers.

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Lifetime Transfers

Lifetime Transfers

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Lifetime Transfers

Remember the seven-year rule

An outright gift falls into one of two categories, depending on the type of gift and to whom it’s made. These categories are Potentially Exempt
Transfers (PETs) and Chargeable Lifetime Transfers (CLTs).

Inheritance Tax exemptions can be achieved by means of making certain exempt transfers, which apply in a number of cases including wedding gifts, life assurance premiums, gifts to your family and charitable giving.

If appropriate, you can transfer some of your assets while you’re alive – these are known as ‘lifetime transfers’. Whilst we are all free to do this whenever we want, it is important to be aware of the potential implications of such gifts with regard to Inheritance Tax. The two main types are Potentially Exempt Transfers and Chargeable Lifetime Transfers.

Exempt transfers

Potentially Exempt Transfers are lifetime gifts made directly to other individuals, which includes gifts to Bare Trusts. A similar lifetime gift made to most other types of trust is a Chargeable Lifetime Transfer. These rules apply to non-exempt transfers: gifts to a spouse are exempt, so are not subject to Inheritance Tax.

Where a Potentially Exempt Transfer fails to satisfy the conditions to remain exempt – because the person who made the gift died within seven years – its value will form part of their estate. Survival for at least seven years, on the other hand, ensures full exemption from Inheritance Tax. Chargeable Lifetime Transfers are not conditionally exempt from Inheritance Tax. If it is covered by the ‘nil-rate band’ (NRB) and the transferor survives at least seven years, it will not attract a tax liability, but it could still impact on other chargeable transfers.

Seven years

Chargeable Lifetime Transfers that exceed the available NRB when they are made result in a lifetime Inheritance Tax liability. Failure to survive for seven years results in the value of the Chargeable Lifetime Transfers being included in the estate. If the Chargeable Lifetime Transfers are subject to further Inheritance Tax on death, a credit is given for any lifetime Inheritance Tax paid.

Following a gift to an individual or a Bare Trust (a basic trust in which the beneficiary has the absolute right to the capital and assets within the trust, as well as the income generated from these assets), there are two potential outcomes: survival for seven years or more, and death before then. The former results in the potentially exempt transfer becoming fully exempt and no longer figuring in the Inheritance Tax assessment. In the other case, the amount transferred less any Inheritance Tax exemptions is ‘notionally’ returned to the estate.

Tax consequences

Anyone utilising potentially exempt transfers for tax migration purposes, therefore, should consider the consequences of failing to survive for seven years. Such an assessment will involve balancing the likelihood of surviving for seven years against the tax consequences of death within that period.

Failure to survive for the required seven-year period results in the full value of the potentially exempt transfers being notionally included within the estate; survival beyond then means nothing is included. It is taper relief which reduces the Inheritance Tax liability (not the value
transferred) on the failed potentially exempt transfers after the full value has been returned to the estate.

Earlier transfers

The value of the potentially exempt transfers is never tapered. The recipient of the failed potentially exempt transfers is liable for the Inheritance Tax due on the gift itself and benefits from any taper relief. The Inheritance Tax due on the potentially exempt transfers is deducted from the total Inheritance Tax bill, and the estate is liable for the balance.

Lifetime transfers are dealt with in chronological order upon death; earlier transfers are dealt with in priority to later ones, all of which are considered before the death estate. If a lifetime transfer is subject to Inheritance Tax because the NRB is not sufficient to cover it, the next step is to determine whether taper relief can reduce the tax bill for the recipient of the potentially exempt transfers.

Sliding scale

The amount of Inheritance Tax payable is not static over the seven years prior to death. Rather, it is reduced according to a sliding scale dependant on the passage of time from the giving of the gift to the individual’s death.

No relief is available if death is within three years of the lifetime transfer. For survival for between three and seven years, taper relief at the following rates is available.

Taper relief

The rate of Inheritance Tax gradually reduces over the seven-year period – this is called ‘taper relief’. It works like this:

How long ago was the gift made? How much is the tax reduced?
0-3 years No reduction
3-4 years 20%
4-5 years 40%
5-6 years 60%
6-7 years 80%
7 years + No tax to pay

It’s important to remember that taper relief only applies to the amount of tax the recipient pays on the value of the gift above the NRB. The rest of your estate will be charged with the full rate of Inheritance Tax – usually 40%.

Donor pays

The tax treatment of Chargeable Lifetime Transfers has some similarities to Potentially Exempt Transfers but with a number of differences. When a Chargeable Lifetime Transfer is made, it is assessed against the donor’s NRB. If there is an excess above the NRB, it is taxed at 20% if the recipient pays the tax or 25% if the donor pays the tax.

The same seven-year rule that applies to Potentially Exempt Transfers then applies. Failure to survive to the end of this period results in Inheritance Tax becoming due on the Chargeable Lifetime Transfers, payable by the recipient. The tax rate is the usual 40% on amounts in excess of the NRB, but taper relief can reduce the tax bill, and credit is given for any lifetime tax paid.

Gift of capital

The seven-year rules that apply to Potentially Exempt Transfers and Chargeable Lifetime Transfers could increase the Inheritance Tax bill for those who fail to survive for long enough after making a gift of capital. If Inheritance Tax is due in respect of a failed Potentially Exempt Transfer, it is payable by the recipient.

If Inheritance Tax is due in respect of a Chargeable Lifetime Transfer on death, it is payable by the trustees. Any remaining Inheritance Tax is payable by the estate.

Appropriate trust

The Inheritance Tax difference can be calculated and covered by a level or decreasing term assurance policy written in an appropriate Trust for the benefit of whoever will be affected by the Inheritance Tax liability and in order to keep the proceeds out of the settlor’s Inheritance Tax estate. Which is more suitable and the level of cover required will depend on the circumstances. If the Potentially Exempt Transfers or Chargeable Lifetime Transfers are within the NRB, taper relief will not apply.

However, this does not mean that no cover is required. Death within seven years will result in the full value of the transfer being included in the estate, with the knock-on effect that other estate assets up to the value of the Potentially Exempt Transfers or Chargeable Lifetime Transfers could suffer tax that they would have avoided had the donor survived for seven years.

Estate legatees

A seven-year level term policy could be the most appropriate type of policy in this situation. Any additional Inheritance Tax is payable by the estate, so a Trust for the benefit of the estate legatees will normally be required.

Where the Potentially Exempt Transfers or Chargeable Lifetime Transfers exceed the NRB, the tapered Inheritance Tax liability that will result from death after the Potentially Exempt Transfers or Chargeable Lifetime Transfers are made can be estimated.

‘Gift inter vivos”

A special form of ‘gift inter vivos’ (a life assurance policy that provides a lump sum to cover the potential Inheritance Tax liability that could arise if the donor  of a gift dies within seven years of making the gift) is put in place (written in an appropriate Trust) to cover the gradually
declining tax liability that may fall on the recipient of the gift.

Trustees might want to use a life of another policy to cover a potential liability. Taper relief only applies to the tax: the full value of the gift is included within the estate, which in this situation will use up the NRB that becomes available to the rest of the estate after seven years.

Whole of life cover

Therefore, the estate itself will also be liable to additional Inheritance Tax on death within seven years, and depending on the circumstances, a separate level term policy written in an appropriate trust for the estate legatees might also be required.

Where an Inheritance Tax liability continues after any Potentially Exempt Transfers or Chargeable Lifetime Transfers have dropped out of account, whole of life cover written in an appropriate Trust should also be considered.

To discuss how we could help you and to learn more about our Tax Planning services and Inheritance Tax services, please contact us today.

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Inheritance Tax & Will Planning

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Estate planning is about more than just tax. It is about making sure the people left behind are financially supported, that your assets are protected and that the tax your estate pays is fair.

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Improving your financial health

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Staying on track to achieving specific financial goals

All of your financial decisions and activities have an effect on your financial health. To help improve your financial health during this period of rising inflation rates and household costs, we look at three areas that could help keep you on track to achieving your specific financial goals.

Beat the national insurance rise

The National Insurance rise from April this year has gone ahead for workers and employers despite pressure to reverse the decision to increase this by 1.25%, which is aimed at raising £39 billion for the Treasury. From April 2023, it is set to revert back to its current rate, and a 1.25% health and social care levy will be applied to raise funds for further improvements to care services.

One way to beat the National Insurance increase is by taking advantage of salary sacrifice, which means you and your employer pay less National Insurance contributions. Some employers may decide to maximise the amount of pension contributions by adding the savings they make in lower employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) to the total pension contribution amount they pay. This is also a way to make your pension savings more tax-efficient. If you choose to take up a salary sacrifice scheme option, you and your employer will agree to reduce your salary, and your employer will then pay the difference into your pension, along with their contributions to the scheme. As you are effectively earning a lower salary, both you and your employer pay lower NICs, which could mean your take-home pay will be higher. Better still, your employer might pay part or all of their NICs saving into your pension too (although they don’t have to do this).

Review your savings

Accounts and rates

Money held in savings accounts hasn’t grown much in recent years due to historically low interest rates. But with inflation running higher, your savings are now at risk of losing value in ‘real’ terms as you will be able to buy less with your money.

In some respects, inflation can be seen as a positive. It’s a sign of strong economic recovery post-COVID, increasing salaries and higher consumer spending. But it’s bad news for your cash savings. Relying solely or overly on cash might prevent you from achieving your long-term financial goals, which may only be possible if you accept some level of investment risk.

In an environment where the cost of living is rising faster than the interest rates received on cash, there is a danger that your savings will slowly become worth less and less, leaving you in a worse position later on. If you have money in savings, it is important to keep an eye on interest rates and where your money is saved. Rates are low and you will lose money in real terms if inflation is higher than the interest rate offered on your savings account or Cash ISA.

Shift longer term savings into equities

During times of high inflation, it’s important to keep your goals in mind. For example, if your investment goals are short term, you may not need to worry much about how inflation is impacting your money. But if you’re investing for the long term, inflation can have a larger impact on your portfolio if it’s sustained – although high inflation that only lasts for a short period may end up just being a blip on your investment journey.

If you have large amounts of money sitting in cash accounts one way to beat inflation is to invest some of your money in a long-term asset that will appreciate with time, thus increasing your buying power over time. There are many ways to invest your money, but most strategies revolve around one of two categories: growth investments and income investments.

Historically, equities have offered an effective way to outperform inflation. Cyclical stocks – like financials, energy and resources companies – are especially well-suited to benefit from rising prices. These sectors typically perform better when the economy is doing well, or recovering from a crisis. Depositing funds into your investment portfolio on a regular basis (such as monthly from salary) can help you invest at different prices, averaging out the overall price at which you get into the market. Known as pound-cost averaging, this can help you smooth out any fluctuations caused by market volatility over the long term. While volatility will always exist, it can be managed and reduced by taking this approach.

Would you like advice on how to improve your financial health? Speak to us to find out how we can help.

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