A younger generation not so bothered about being married, even with children, are now older; and many second-time-arounders’ past experiences make them avoid knot-tying. This decomplicates some parts of the arrangement but can leave a heck of a mess behind when one dies. Making a will is a good start, as many don’t. But if they’re leaving even half of the house to the other half, this could be liable to IHT, unless they get married as there is none payable between spouses. So while money and tax-efficiency have rarely, since the days of Bridgerton (or Jane Austen if you don’t have Netflix) , been reason enough to get married, they really should be if there’s no reason not to.
“HMRC scraps plans to tax pensions after death”
A couple of other Statement Highlights (in my world, anyway). A welcome ‘nothing happened’ on the treatment of pensions on death. They were never going to be liable to IHT (too complicated with trusts and trust law) but there was talk of making them income-taxable on the recipients at whatever age you die.
