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From new year to year end – time to keep a tax-planning resolution?

Written by admin on . Posted in Capital Gains Tax, High Income Child Benefit Charge, Inheritance Tax. No Comments on From new year to year end – time to keep a tax-planning resolution?

As 2025 gets under way, it is once again the time of year to start considering your tax year-end planning.

The early months of the year are the time to undertake year-end tax planning. Unsurprisingly, the traditional drivers have been the tax year-end (Saturday 5 April 2025) and the Spring Budget. On this occasion, after last October’s blockbuster, there is no Spring Budget, although Rachel Reeves will deliver a Spring Forecast in late March. In the wake of that Autumn Budget, there is plenty to consider:

  • Pension contributions: The Budget announcement that pensions will fall within the scope of inheritance tax (IHT) from 2027/28 makes the review of pension contributions slightly different from previous years. For most people, pensions remain a highly tax-efficient way of saving for retirement, but for the wealthy few unconcerned about retirement income, they are no longer the estate-planning tool of choice.
  • Capital gains tax (CGT): Capital gains tax rates increased in the Budget to 24% for higher and additional rate taxpayers and 18% for other taxpayers. If you have not used your annual exemption – now just £3,000 of gains – you should consider doing so after what has been a generally good year on the world’s stock markets.
  • IHT: Now is the time to use your annual exempt amount (£3,000 per tax year) for 2024/25 if you have not already done so. If you did not use your full exemption from 2023/24, you can also gift the unused element after you have exhausted this year’s exemption.
  • Marriage allowances: If you or your spouse/civil partner had income below the personal allowance in 2020/21 (£12,500), you have until 5 April 2025 to claim the marriage allowance for that year (£1,250), which could produce a tax saving of up to £250. A claim can only be made if the other partner was a basic rate taxpayer (starter, basic or intermediate rate in Scotland) in that tax year. The same principle applies (with an allowance of £1,260) for 2021/22 and subsequent years onwards.
  • Threshold planning: The long-term freezes that have applied to income tax allowances and many thresholds may mean you move into a higher tax band in the coming tax year. Equally you could find yourself crossing the unchanged £60,000 threshold for the high-income child benefit charge or the £100,000 threshold for personal allowance taper and loss of tax-free childcare. Among the strategies to beat the unmoving thresholds, you could bring forward income into 2024/25 (e.g., by closing an interest-paying account) or move some income-generating investments across to your (lower income) spouse or civil partner by 5 April.

It is best to seek advice before taking any action – in tax, errors can be costly and difficult to unwind.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

The Autumn Budget – a brave new tax world

Written by admin on . Posted in Budget, Capital Gains Tax, Corporation Tax, Income Tax, Inheritance Tax, National Insurance Contributions. No Comments on The Autumn Budget – a brave new tax world

Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first Budget was a significant one in all senses.

“…this Budget delivers a large, sustained increase in spending, taxation, and borrowing.”

So said the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in the first paragraph of its overview of the Autumn Budget. The numbers are indeed large:

  • spending is up by almost £70 billion a year over the next five years;
  • taxation will rise by £36 billion a year; and
  • borrowing will still be above £70 billion a year in 2029/30.

The Chancellor’s tax-raising opportunities were constrained by the Labour manifesto pledges to hold the rates of income tax, VAT, corporation tax and national insurance contributions (NICs) – only for employees, although other interpretations are available. The result was that other taxes had to carry the burden of providing extra funds for the Treasury:

  • Over half the additional revenue came from changes to employer’s NICs from 2025/26. These saw the class 1 employer rate rise from 13.8% to 15.0%, and the starting point for payments fall from £9,100 of annual earnings to £5,000. The impact of this was mitigated slightly by a £5,500 increase to £10,500 in the employment allowance – effectively an employer NIC credit.
  • The main capital gains tax rates have increased from 10% to 18% (for non-taxpayers and basic rate taxpayers) and from 20% to 24% (for higher and additional rate taxpayers). The rate for business assets disposal relief will rise from 10% to 14% in 2025/26 and then 18% in the following tax year, with the maximum amount of lifetime relievable gain staying at £1 million.
  • Inheritance tax (IHT) relief for businesses and agricultural property will be cut back from April 2026, with the relief for qualifying shares listed on the Alternative Investment Market halved to 50%.
  • Death benefits from pensions will be brought into IHT from 2027/28, although there were none of the other tax changes that had been rumoured in the weeks before the Budget. Notably full income tax relief on contributions remains and employer contributions continue to be free of NICs.

If you could be affected by any of these changes (or further changes not mentioned in this update), make sure that you seek advice. The sooner you are prepared for this new, higher tax environment, the better.

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HMRC ramps up its checks and investigations

Written by admin on . Posted in Company Director, HMRC Investigations, Inheritance Tax. No Comments on HMRC ramps up its checks and investigations

There’s no respite for HMRC with inheritance tax (IHT) accounts, undeclared dividend income and gains from share disposals to scrutinise.

HMRC is currently busy with several ongoing checks. They are looking at IHT accounts, targeting undeclared dividend income, and making sure any gains from share disposals have been correctly declared.

Inheritance tax accounts

The complexities of IHT can catch out even seasoned observers and there are many pitfalls, including:

  • Business property: 100% relief from IHT may be available, so it is important to make sure claims are correct. It is worth noting that relief may not be available if a business has a large amount of cash or assets held as investments.
  • Valuations: HMRC might contest valuations submitted in respect of unquoted shares, property or jointly owned assets. To avoid problems, obtain formal IHT valuations from experts.
  • Payment deadline: IHT on an estate must be paid within six months after the end of the month in which death occurred; this is a much tighter deadline than for most other major taxes.

Dividend income

HMRC is writing to company owners who may have undeclared dividend income. Its approach is to compare a company’s reported profits with the movement in reserves. Where a difference is identified, this could be an indication of dividends being paid to shareholders.

Anyone receiving a letter should contact HMRC within 30 days of its receipt, even if there is no dividend income to declare, or risk facing a compliance check.

Share disposals

Letters are also being sent to taxpayers who have disposed of shares but are suspected of omitting the details from their tax returns.

HMRC has looked for discrepancies by checking the information it has on share disposals against details declared on self-assessment tax returns. Anyone receiving a letter will have 60 days to amend their return.

If no capital gains tax is due on the disposal identified by HMRC, the taxpayer needs to explain why in writing.

HMRC’s guide to valuing an estate for IHT purposes can be found here.

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Farewell to inheritance tax?

Written by admin on . Posted in Inheritance Tax. No Comments on Farewell to inheritance tax?

In July, the government was reported as holding talks on abolishing inheritance tax (IHT). This wasn’t given much credence at the time, but there are now reports that the March 2024 Budget will include a reduction to the 40% IHT rate as a prelude to future abolishment.

IHT is charged at the rate of 40% on estates worth more than £325,000. However, there is also a further allowance of £175,000 that can be set against the value of a main residence if the property is inherited by descendants. Both allowances are shared between spouses or civil partners, so there is a potential family exemption of £1 million.

Although the combination of frozen allowances and higher property values has brought more estates into the IHT net, the tax is only paid on around 4% of estates.

Argument for change

Given that investments are generally paid for out of taxed income, IHT can be seen as a double charge to tax, preventing people passing on their wealth to children and grandchildren.

  • It applies to virtually all assets, without the exemptions given for capital gains tax – such as for a main residence.
  • Although IHT is mainly paid by the wealthy, the very rich typically have far more scope for reducing their overall IHT burden by, for example, making lifetime gifts and using trusts.

The moderately wealthy, where a main residence may account for the majority of wealth, may not be able to afford such tax planning measures.

How likely?

Although a rate reduction of a percentage point or two cannot be ruled out, full abolition is almost certainly going to be too costly in the current economic climate – some £7 billion in lost tax revenue annually – especially as HMRC is on course to have a record-breaking year from IHT receipts.

Then there is the forthcoming general election. A Labour government would be more likely to move in the opposite direction by cutting IHT allowances – in particular, the £175,000 main residence allowance.

In the meantime, if your estate may become liable for IHT, there are measures you can take. HMRC’s basic guide to IHT, including details of various exemptions, can be found here.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Inheritance Tax: Intestacy entitlement increased

Written by admin on . Posted in Inheritance Tax, Lasting Will & Testaments, Wealth, Wills & Probate. No Comments on Inheritance Tax: Intestacy entitlement increased

If an English or Welsh domiciled person dies without leaving a will, the amount that a surviving spouse or civil partner can inherit as a statutory legacy under the intestacy rules has – from 26 July – been increased from £270,000 to £322,000.

This statutory legacy only comes into play if the deceased also has children – the spouse or civil partner receives £322,000 and the deceased’s personal possessions, plus 50% of the remainder of the estate. The children receive the other 50% of the remainder. An exception applies where property is jointly owned. If there are no children, the spouse or civil partner will inherit the whole estate.

Example

Noah died intestate leaving an estate valued at £900,000. He is survived by his spouse, Emma, and two children. Emma inherits a total of £611,000 (£322,000 plus 50% of the remainder), and the two children will share £289,000.

Controversy

The statutory legacy is reviewed every five years, and the next review is due in January 2025. However, the five-year review period is overridden if inflation increases by 15% or more. The trigger point should have been December 2022, but inflation then fell in January 2023 before again going over 15%.

The 26 July uplift is therefore around seven months late, and some surviving spouses and civil partners will receive £52,000 less as a result of the delay. A House of Lords committee has raised the matter with the relevant authority, the Ministry of Justice, asking how such shortfalls will be dealt with.

Importance of leaving a will

The importance of leaving a valid will can be seen by looking at those who have no automatic right of inheritance:

  • Unmarried partners;
  • LBGT partners not in a civil partnership;
  • Relations by marriage;
  • Close friends; and
  • Close relatives other than children only inherit in certain circumstances.

The intestacy rules differ for those domiciled in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

The government has created an online tool to check who will inherit if someone dies without leaving a valid will. This can be found here.

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Take Two on Wealth tax…………

Written by admin on . Posted in Inheritance Tax, Tax, Wealth. No Comments on Take Two on Wealth tax…………

Hard on the heels of May’s Sunday Times Rich List, will new proposals for a wealth tax gain any traction?

In 2020, a group of economic research bodies set up the Wealth Tax Commission to examine the options for a wealth tax to cover the huge costs then being incurred to handle the Covid-19 pandemic. The Commission produced a comprehensive report at the end of the year that suggested:

  • A one-off wealth tax (as opposed to annual);
  • A rate of 5%, payable at 1% a year for five years; and
  • The tax to be payable on all wealth above £500,000, including pensions and main residences.

The tax would have produced £260 billion in total, almost as much as income tax is projected to raise in 2023/24. While the proposals received considerable attention at the time, they were given the cold shoulder by the government and soon disappeared from view.

About two and a half years later, a new wealth tax proposal has been put forward by a group of three tax-campaigning organisations. Their launch came shortly after the latest Sunday Times Rich List was published, showing that 350 individuals and families together hold combined wealth of £796.5 billion.

The new wealth tax was substantially different from the Commission structure:

  • It would be an annual tax;
  • The rate would be 2%; and
  • It would only be payable on all wealth above £10 million.

The high threshold means that the annual amount raised each year would be less than the previous proposal – the campaigners suggested up to £22 billion, although the Commission’s 2020 research suggested a figure of around £17 billion for a similar structure– there are only around 22,000 individuals with wealth of greater than £10 million, according to the Commission.

Polling for one of the three organisations, undertaken by YouGov, showed 74% public support for the 2% wealth tax. Such a result is hardly surprising – most people are in favour of a tax from which they could only benefit.

This latest wealth tax proposal seems destined to suffer the same fate as its predecessor. Were the government to provide a counter argument, it could point out that the freezes it has made to the personal allowance and higher rate threshold alone will raise an extra £21.9 billion in 2023/24, rising to £25.5 billion by 2027/28. This seems unlikely however……………

Photo by Jingming Pan on Unsplash

 

Increase in number of estates paying IHT

Written by admin on . Posted in Inheritance Tax, Lasting Will & Testaments, Wealth. No Comments on Increase in number of estates paying IHT

The combination of a frozen inheritance tax (IHT) nil rate band and considerably higher property values has pushed more estates into the IHT net. The average IHT bill is now nearly £62,000, with much larger amounts payable if an estate includes a property in London or the South East.

Increase in property values

Even though property prices have fallen recently, the average price of a detached house went up by more than £20,000 to nearly £454,000 during the year to March 2023. The average price for London property is not far off £525,000.

  • Since the nil rate band was frozen back in 2009, the average UK property has risen in value by 86%.
  • The FTSE All Share index shows an even better return, having gone up by just under 245%. An investment of £50,000 in March 2009 would have been worth over £170,000 by March 2023.

With cash savings also added in, a typical estate is now valued at just under £480,000. If the residence nil rate band is not available, the IHT liability on such an estate is £62,000. However, if the nil rate band had been uprated with inflation, no IHT would have been payable on such an estate.

Mitigating IHT liability

Mitigating a future IHT liability requires a shift from being a saver to a spender. This might mean putting assets into trust or making pension contributions – financial advice being essential here.

Making lifetime gifts will obviously reduce the value of an estate. Options could include regular monthly saving into junior ISAs for grandchildren (with such gifts normally completely free of IHT) or helping a child with their first home by paying the deposit (such a large gift will exceed the available exemptions but will fall out of IHT after seven years).

Even if you decide to just spend on yourself, leasing a new car or taking extended holidays abroad looks much more affordable if you factor in the future 40% IHT reduction.

HMRC’s basic guide to how IHT works, including details of various exemptions, can be found here.

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Cohabitation law reforms rejected

Written by admin on . Posted in Income Tax, Inheritance Tax. No Comments on Cohabitation law reforms rejected

The government has rejected proposals to modernise cohabitation laws in England and Wales, leaving it up to individuals to arrange their financial affairs for partners and dependents.

In August, the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee published The rights of cohabiting partners for England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own laws). Amidst all the other political excitement of that month, the report received little coverage.

The lack of media attention was a pity, as the Committee made some important recommendations about a significant proportion of the population – the one in five couples who have chosen cohabitation rather than marriage or civil partnership. The report noted that “Whereas married couples and civil partners have certain legal rights and responsibilities upon divorce or death, cohabitants receive, in general, inferior protections”. This fact is compounded by what the report called the “common law marriage myth” – the erroneous belief that after a certain amount of time of living together, the law treats cohabitants as if they were married.

The report made six recommendations for action, only one of which was accepted in full by the government. The following three proposals were rejected outright:

  • Family Law should be reformed to better protect cohabiting couples and their children from financial hardship in the event of separation. A potential structure for such reform was proposed by the Law Commission in 2007, which having ignored for so long the government now says is too old to be implemented without a review or fresh consultation.
  • The intestacy rules should be immediately redrawn to recognise cohabitation. The Committee again supported ideas put forward by the Law Commission (this time from 2011). The government’s rejection of any intestacy reform was largely predicated on the notion that cohabiting couples could make wills to deal with their estates.
  • The inheritance tax regime should be the same for cohabiting partners as it currently is for married couples and civil partners. This was rejected by the Treasury – the responsible government department – which said it “has no plans at present to extend the longstanding treatment of spouses and civil partners to cohabiting partners.”

If you are cohabiting, the government’s message is clear: make your own legal and financial arrangements – and don’t believe that common law marriage myth.

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The effects of fiscal drag on your tax position

Written by admin on . Posted in High Income Child Benefit Charge, Income Tax, Inheritance Tax, self-assessment. No Comments on The effects of fiscal drag on your tax position

Fiscal drag is the stealthy way in which governments pull more and more taxpayers into higher tax brackets without the backlash that comes with increased tax rates. This is something taxpayers can probably live with when inflation is negligible, but it’s another matter entirely with inflation at over 11%.

Inheritance tax

One of the starkest examples of fiscal drag is the freezing of the inheritance tax (IHT) nil rate band that has been set at £325,000 since April 2009. Combined with soaring property prices, it is no surprise the government’s IHT receipts have nearly doubled in the ten years to 2021/22, with current year receipts set to see a further significant increase.

The nil rate band had previously been frozen at £325,000 until 2026, but the Autumn Statement has now extended the freeze until 2028.

IHT bills can sometimes be mitigated with careful lifetime planning, although people should be careful not to leave themselves short of funds later in life.

Income tax thresholds

The personal allowance (£12,570) and the basic rate tax threshold (£37,700) are unchanged since 2021/22, and, like the IHT nil rate band, are now set to remain frozen until 2028. Other thresholds are subject to fiscal drag because the government simply ignores them from year to year.

  • The £100,000 income limit at which the personal allowance starts to be withdrawn is unchanged since withdrawal was introduced in 2010. Personal allowance withdrawal leads to a 60% marginal tax rate, and an estimated one million more taxpayers could be caught if nothing changes over the next five years.
  • The High Income Child Benefit Charge income limit of £50,000 is unchanged since the charge was introduced in 2013. Around one in five families are now affected by the limit, compared to one in eight when the charge was first introduced.

To mitigate the impact of these frozen thresholds, some income tax planning may be possible for spouses and civil partners. Pension contributions can also reduce the amount of income counting towards the various income limits.

Details of income tax rates and personal allowances for the current tax year can be found here.

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Confused on claiming residence band relief?

Written by admin on . Posted in Inheritance Tax, Lasting Will & Testaments, Wealth, Wills & Probate. No Comments on Confused on claiming residence band relief?

Working through inheritance tax (IHT) requirements come at a difficult time. The provisions of the residence nil rate band (RNRB), which can be passed on between deceased spouses and civil partners, has caused some confusion.

Any unused RNRB from the first death of a spouse or partner can be relieved on the death of the second individual. The claim is based on the value of the RNRB at second death, but some executors are mistakenly using the value at the date of first death.

The RNRB was introduced from 6 April 2017 at £100,000, increasing by £25,000 a year until reaching its current value of £175,000.

The claim for RNRB is made on IHT form IHT436, with the confusion coming from the entry at box 11: the value of the RNRB enhancement at the spouse or civil partner’s date of death. However, the actual claim is based on the value entered at box 14. This should be the value of the RNRB at the date of second death, although it is easy to see why mistakes are being made given the confusing wording used by HMRC.

HMRC does not seem to be picking up the error, so if a mistake has been made a correction will have to be made by writing to the Revenue.

Conditions and transfer

Unlike the normal IHT nil rate band, the RNRB comes with various conditions. It is only available:

  • At death (not against lifetime gifts).
  • Against the value of a home (only one property can qualify).
  • Where the home is inherited by direct descendants (including step, adopted and foster children).

Any unused RNRB can be transferred in the same way as the nil rate band, with a claim required within two years of second death. It doesn’t matter if first death was before the introduction of the RNRB on 6 April 2017.

The unused RNRB of more than one spouse or civil partner can be transferred, but the overall total cannot exceed one full RNRB (£175,000).

Detailed HMRC guidance on working out and applying the RNRB can be found here.

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