Inheritance Tax Warning 

Hi, it’s Graham Martin from Kingsbridge Wills and Trusts. It’s the end of April 2024. I read this in the week. What about that for a headline? Inheritance tax rises to $7.5 billion all time high. So what does that mean? Well, essentially, in 2023, HMRC collected $400 million more than in 2022, and they hit $7.5 billion of revenue.

Now, what does that mean to most of us? Well, when we think about inheritance tax, or death taxes used to be called, how glamorous, we think about sending money over to the government. And in fact, depending upon your individual level of inheritance tax, whether it be 325 or 500,000 pounds, half a million, it’ll be 40%. Now, there are some things that can be done, particularly if you’re rich and famous, you can put money into various schemes, put money in Switzerland and gold bars, a whole bunch of stuff that but for most of us, that’s not really realistic.

So what we’re looking to do is we’re looking to, you know, sadly, having to have our estate paid by HT. However, what you can do is by leaving it in trust to your children or other people, then that inheritance tax liability for them and their offspring, so potentially, your grandchildren, if you consider that, that could be an inheritance tax free from their points of view, which is really useful.

Additionally, when you leave money in trust, well, it’s not accessible by most things such as creditors and bankruptcy and debtors, vitally, if you have a situation where upon your children or your grandchildren might get married or buy a property with somebody, and it goes awry, and let’s be honest, 42% of marriages do end in divorce sadly in the UK at the moment, well, that money that came via the trust shouldn’t be attackable by divorce, which is really useful. So if you want to consider protecting your children, your offspring, whoever you want to leave money to, can be friends, family, could be somebody else, then talk to me, Graham Martin at Kingsbridge Wills and Trusts, you can contact me at [email protected], or give me a ring or send me a text, it’s 07973175882. The bottom line is we’re trying to make sure that your offspring, those you need money to, are not repaying towards this huge number.

Anyway, have a good evening, have a good day, I’ll see you again, Graham Martin of Kingsbridge Wills and Trusts, drop me a line, give me a ring, bye.