This is hardly a surprise, of course. A decade and a bit of rising house and asset prices, while the IHT allowance, the nil rate band, has only increased by 4% since 2007. The ‘residence nil rate band’ was introduced 10 years later in 2017, but since then there’s been no change, while the average home and share portfolio is worth 30-35% more. It’s the stealthiest of stealth taxes, not payable until you, or you and your other half if you’re a trad married family person, are dead, and collected on behalf of His Maj’s R&C by solicitors and executors. Nothing’s going to change anytime soon, I’d say, and those allowances are frozen for another 3 years at least. Although if you’re worried, there are a few (increasingly few) things that financial advice can do to help.
“IFS calls for govt to scrap 25% tax-free lump sum”
’Scrapping’ the tax-free lump-sum would not be a simple as it sounds. Nothing in the wonderful world of pensions, ever is. In 2006 ‘Pensions Simplification’ was the New Big Thing.
