Latest / Merryn Talks Money / Inheritance Tax Is Catching More People — Here's How to Fight Back
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Welcome to Merrin Talks
- 0:18Speaker 1: Your Money, the personal finance edition of Merrin Talks Money.
- 0:22Speaker 1: In these bonus podcasts, we talk about the best strategies
- 0:24Speaker 1: to making the most of your money.
- 0:26Speaker 2: I'm marrin Sumset.
- 0:27Speaker 3: Web and I'm joined Davie Senior, reported Bloomberg and author
- 0:30Speaker 3: is the Money Distilled newsletter.
- 0:36Speaker 2: We are talking inheritance tax again.
- 0:39Speaker 4: Now.
- 0:39Speaker 1: Whenever we do a mail back episode, questions about inheritance
- 0:42Speaker 1: tax absolutely for blood in.
- 0:44Speaker 2: It is absolutely top of.
- 0:46Speaker 1: A lot of our listeners minds, and of course it's
- 0:47Speaker 1: endlessly covered in the media as well.
- 0:50Speaker 2: So today we are looking at it again and we are.
- 0:53Speaker 1: Going to focus on the thing that I know you
- 0:55Speaker 1: really care about, which is how to pay less of it.
- 0:58Speaker 1: So I've got on a guest to help us that
- 1:00Speaker 1: with the technical bit. So joining us today is Rob May.
- 1:03Speaker 1: Rober is a trust and a state practitioner who os
- 1:05Speaker 1: expert IHD planning advice to high net worth clients. Here
- 1:08Speaker 1: is the executive director of Life and Inherance Tax at
- 1:11Speaker 1: SPF Private Clients. Robert, thank you, thank you for joining
- 1:15Speaker 1: us today.
- 1:16Speaker 4: Oh you're very very welcome. Mary and it's great to
- 1:18Speaker 4: be here today.
- 1:20Speaker 1: All right, Now let's start off by talking about well
- 1:24Speaker 1: in meritive sex of course, but not that many people
- 1:27Speaker 1: actually end up paying it, right, I mean there's a
- 1:29Speaker 1: system of allowances that means that most people are not
- 1:34Speaker 1: going to pay it.
- 1:35Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 1:36Speaker 5: Absolutely, so, I mean, every individual, doesn't matter where you are,
- 1:39Speaker 5: has a newwork band.
- 1:40Speaker 4: Allowance of three hundred and twenty five thousand.
- 1:43Speaker 5: Dependent on how much wealth you have as well, you
- 1:46Speaker 5: might benefit from the additional residents newwork band of up
- 1:49Speaker 5: to one hundred and seventy five k, So potentially each
- 1:53Speaker 5: individual could have up to half a million allowance.
- 1:56Speaker 4: And of course if you're married or civil.
- 1:59Speaker 5: Partners, then potentially means that between you both you've got
- 2:02Speaker 5: a up to a million inheritance SAT through.
- 2:05Speaker 2: Yeah, but then so that might work for you.
- 2:07Speaker 1: Even then of course, if you don't have you don't
- 2:09Speaker 1: have a family home that you can said against it,
- 2:11Speaker 1: or haven't had one that you downsized for a recently,
- 2:13Speaker 1: you may not get that allowance. So that may if
- 2:15Speaker 1: you always rented, for example, if you saw on a
- 2:17Speaker 1: long time ago, you may not get that full amount.
- 2:19Speaker 1: You'll just get the through twenty five absolutely and then
- 2:22Speaker 1: of course says this this thing that I don't think
- 2:24Speaker 1: quite enough people really understand, which is that if your
- 2:27Speaker 1: state is worth over two million, that allowance starts to disappear,
- 2:32Speaker 1: right And how does that work?
- 2:34Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, so it's kind of it takes down one
- 2:37Speaker 5: pound for every two pound over then over the two
- 2:40Speaker 5: million effectively, So if you're a state, if you're an
- 2:42Speaker 5: individual and your state is valued at two point three
- 2:45Speaker 5: five million, you won't have any of that additional residence
- 2:48Speaker 5: noway brand allowance. And if you're a married couple or
- 2:51Speaker 5: civil partners and your state's over two point seven million,
- 2:54Speaker 5: then you again won't have any of that additional allowance.
- 2:57Speaker 5: So that's when it goes straight back down to the.
- 2:59Speaker 1: Three two five, okay, but the three two five never
- 3:02Speaker 1: gets taken away.
- 3:03Speaker 2: Everyone gets the three two five regardless.
- 3:05Speaker 4: Everyone gets a three two five regardless.
- 3:07Speaker 5: And just to be complete, you know, sometimes people make
- 3:10Speaker 5: gifts during their lifetime and that might eat into that allowance,
- 3:13Speaker 5: but it should then in theory reset every seven years.
- 3:16Speaker 1: If those gifts break the seven year role exactly. So
- 3:19Speaker 1: if you gave up at the moneyway five years ago,
- 3:21Speaker 1: three years ago, to years go, whatever, it.
- 3:23Speaker 5: Exactly Yeah, so as long as you're seven years after
- 3:25Speaker 5: making gifts, if it's eaten into that three T five allowance,
- 3:28Speaker 5: it should be available.
- 3:30Speaker 1: Okay, So if we're talking about a single person who's
- 3:33Speaker 1: maybe rented, that's all they get three two five. So
- 3:36Speaker 1: maybe as the more people will be putting inheritance sakes
- 3:38Speaker 1: than we think.
- 3:39Speaker 4: Absolutely.
- 3:40Speaker 5: I mean, if we look at the last few years
- 3:42Speaker 5: in particular, or perhaps consistently over many years, you know,
- 3:47Speaker 5: inheritance tax receipt by HMRC have just kept going up
- 3:50Speaker 5: and up. And that's simply because you know that nearway
- 3:53Speaker 5: band or three two five allowance just hasn't changed, hasn't
- 3:56Speaker 5: been adjusted for inflation. Means that lots more people are
- 3:59Speaker 5: getting called by it. And as I'm sure we'll come
- 4:02Speaker 5: on to a little bit later, because of other changes
- 4:05Speaker 5: that have happened in more recent times around inheritance tax,
- 4:07Speaker 5: even more people will be captured in the not to
- 4:10Speaker 5: distant future, if not already.
- 4:12Speaker 1: Okay, so let's start with the absolutely best way to
- 4:15Speaker 1: avoid inheritance tax, which is to spend all your money
- 4:19Speaker 1: and to die broken. And as we often say on
- 4:21Speaker 1: the show, the around her pockets in this shroud. So
- 4:23Speaker 1: just get out there and spend that money.
- 4:26Speaker 2: That's the best way out right, absolutely, lerk.
- 4:28Speaker 4: The simplest form is do as much as you can
- 4:30Speaker 4: to spend.
- 4:31Speaker 5: It all if you know, or at least get under
- 4:33Speaker 5: those allowances so that you don't have any inheritance tax
- 4:36Speaker 5: to pay.
- 4:37Speaker 4: Absolutely, that's the best way.
- 4:38Speaker 1: Okay, So we're encouraging that. And that's also, by the way, everybody,
- 4:41Speaker 1: very good for the economy. Not good for your kids,
- 4:43Speaker 1: but great for the economy. So if we really encourage that,
- 4:46Speaker 1: get rid of those savings, get rid of everything, sell
- 4:48Speaker 1: that house. I know it's not the best time, by
- 4:50Speaker 1: the way, ben get out and spend go on holiday.
- 4:52Speaker 1: Maybe oh no, you can't jet feel go on holiday
- 4:55Speaker 1: in the UK right now? Assuming that you can't do that,
- 4:59Speaker 1: or that you too no to do that, you can't
- 5:01Speaker 1: quite bring yourself to get rid of all your money,
- 5:02Speaker 1: maybe you have too money. And anyway, who knows when
- 5:04Speaker 1: they're going to die, etcetera. So one way or another,
- 5:07Speaker 1: you're going to die within a state worth over five
- 5:10Speaker 1: hundred thousand, over a million, whatever it is, depending on
- 5:12Speaker 1: where it kicks in. What's the next best way to
- 5:15Speaker 1: avoid inheritance tax?
- 5:16Speaker 5: I'm going to be a little bit biased here because,
- 5:18Speaker 5: of course, so I focused on insurance solutions as the
- 5:21Speaker 5: as a solution to inheritance tax planker re clients. So
- 5:24Speaker 5: you know, well, wouldn't this is so best? Because of
- 5:27Speaker 5: course it all depends on individual circumstances. But I think
- 5:30Speaker 5: certainly the simplest form of then dealing with that inheritance
- 5:34Speaker 5: tax exposure is to is to ensure against it.
- 5:37Speaker 2: So I thought you were going to say deathbed marriage.
- 5:41Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean, if yeah, you're you're quite right.
- 5:44Speaker 5: I mean, if you're not married, absolutely get married. Make
- 5:46Speaker 5: sure you benefit from the spouse exemption. But assuming you're
- 5:51Speaker 5: already married.
- 5:53Speaker 2: This bit of the show is aimed.
- 5:54Speaker 1: It's squarely at my mother by the way you're listening them,
- 5:57Speaker 1: she's away asking me how to avoid inheritance tax and
- 6:01Speaker 1: remarried my dad.
- 6:02Speaker 2: How bad can it be?
- 6:03Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, that's definitely definitely getting married or actually, you know,
- 6:09Speaker 5: you raise an important point there in some people don't
- 6:12Speaker 5: have their wills up to date, right, So absolutely, no
- 6:15Speaker 5: matter what you do around planeting, absolutely make sure that
- 6:19Speaker 5: you've got your will in place, particularly if.
- 6:21Speaker 4: You're in a married.
- 6:23Speaker 5: Couple or civil partnership, because it's not automatic that everything
- 6:27Speaker 5: goes to your spouse or civil partner. So making sure
- 6:30Speaker 5: that you have those wills set up on that basis
- 6:33Speaker 5: means that you can guarantee that you've got that spouse exemption.
- 6:36Speaker 5: So everything from an inheritance tax perspective is hopefully deferred
- 6:40Speaker 5: until a second second death of both people.
- 6:43Speaker 1: Okay, excellent, So first bendedal, second deathbed marriage. And further
- 6:48Speaker 1: one that you're biased towards, which is insurance insurance.
- 6:55Speaker 5: Tell us how that w was, Yeah, for sure. So
- 6:58Speaker 5: there's broadly two forms of life insurance that can be
- 7:00Speaker 5: used for inheritance tax planning. So you've got a term
- 7:04Speaker 5: life insurance policy so a bit like the name suggests,
- 7:07Speaker 5: it lasts for a specified period. You can use it
- 7:11Speaker 5: in various different ways, in various different circumstances to then
- 7:16Speaker 5: mitigate that inheritance tax risk, as I said, for a
- 7:19Speaker 5: specific period. So probably the most common form that it's
- 7:24Speaker 5: used for. A common planning solution that it's used for
- 7:26Speaker 5: is when people do gift assets during their lifetime. So
- 7:31Speaker 5: to the extent that someone's gifted assets and it's above
- 7:33Speaker 5: any of their allowances and reliefs and things, then they've
- 7:36Speaker 5: got a seven year exposure for an inheritance tax liability
- 7:40Speaker 5: to arise if they die within that period, So you
- 7:43Speaker 5: can set up a very specific seven year policy that
- 7:47Speaker 5: will match that tax exposure during that period and therefore
- 7:50Speaker 5: mean that if the worst does happen, death does arise
- 7:54Speaker 5: and therefore it triggers a tax liability. Ultimately, the funds
- 7:57Speaker 5: are available to then fund that tax tax liability for
- 8:02Speaker 5: the beneficiaries of the gifts. So that's a common way.
- 8:06Speaker 5: I mean term insurance also utilized more as a deferral mechanism.
- 8:10Speaker 5: So maybe you've got clients that are looking at potentially
- 8:15Speaker 5: a time horizon within which maybe they will gift to children,
- 8:18Speaker 5: but the children are too young for them to do
- 8:20Speaker 5: so at this stage, and so they perhaps wanting to
- 8:22Speaker 5: see how life pans out a little bit before they
- 8:24Speaker 5: feel comfortable gifting sizeable assets to children. So you can
- 8:29Speaker 5: maybe look at ten, fifteen, twenty years, whatever the term
- 8:32Speaker 5: needs to be, but you can arrange it all the
- 8:35Speaker 5: way up to age ninety expiry, so protecting any kind
- 8:38Speaker 5: of period in between that to mitigate that tax exposure.
- 8:42Speaker 5: The other solution is whole of life. So again a
- 8:45Speaker 5: bit like the name suggests it doesn't have an end date.
- 8:48Speaker 5: It lasts forever. So you know, if you're an individual married,
- 8:51Speaker 5: it just lasts until you die. If you're a married
- 8:54Speaker 5: couple or in civil partnership, it can last until the
- 8:57Speaker 5: second if you die.
- 8:58Speaker 4: So ultimately to time.
- 9:00Speaker 5: The payout when the death arises and when when tax
- 9:03Speaker 5: liabilities ultimately arise.
- 9:06Speaker 1: Okay, so that sounds expensive. Let's let's just look at
- 9:09Speaker 1: these different types. So let's say I'm buying the seven
- 9:11Speaker 1: year one. Let's say the sake of ab I've given
- 9:14Speaker 1: one of my ungrateful children half a million quid and
- 9:17Speaker 1: I'm worried that I won't make it through the next
- 9:19Speaker 1: seven years, and I want to ensure against that.
- 9:21Speaker 2: What's that going to cost me?
- 9:22Speaker 5: You're, say age sixty, and I still work in percentages,
- 9:26Speaker 5: So if you're age sixty, the total costs that you
- 9:29Speaker 5: might pay towards that life insurance policy is probably no
- 9:34Speaker 5: more than zero point six percent of the.
- 9:36Speaker 4: Value of the gift that you have made.
- 9:39Speaker 5: So if you compare that to the fact that in
- 9:41Speaker 5: the first three years of that period of seven years,
- 9:44Speaker 5: you've got a potentially forty percent tax exposure. Yeah, yeah,
- 9:48Speaker 5: you're locking in a total effective tax cost of point
- 9:51Speaker 5: six percent versus a potential tax risk of forty percent
- 9:55Speaker 5: if I'm sixty.
- 9:56Speaker 2: But am I going to have to have a medical
- 9:57Speaker 2: for that?
- 9:58Speaker 5: Rob? I don't want a medical if you don't in medical.
- 10:01Speaker 5: It depends on the depends on the sums that you
- 10:03Speaker 5: need ultimately, right, Yeah, there are there are circumstances where
- 10:06Speaker 5: if you're looking at smaller sums dependent on age, you
- 10:09Speaker 5: won't need a medical exam full stop. It's a common
- 10:12Speaker 5: thing that comes up in the conversations I have with clients,
- 10:14Speaker 5: So you know obviously that that kind of concern around
- 10:17Speaker 5: needing to go through a medical exam. What I find
- 10:20Speaker 5: is that once you've spoken to someone a little bit
- 10:22Speaker 5: about how what's involved with it, actually they get a
- 10:25Speaker 5: little bit more comfortable with it. Of Course, you know,
- 10:28Speaker 5: there could be circumstances though, where people are simply just
- 10:32Speaker 5: not in very good health and therefore insurance isn't available
- 10:35Speaker 5: to them. So that's really key to keep key to
- 10:37Speaker 5: stress as well, because it works very well, but it's
- 10:41Speaker 5: not available to everyone.
- 10:42Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so zero point six percent if I'm sixty,
- 10:46Speaker 1: how much more if I'm seventy.
- 10:47Speaker 4: If you're seventy you're probably looking at about one point eight.
- 10:50Speaker 2: Percent assuming you're in good health.
- 10:53Speaker 5: Assuming it's doing good health, yeah, absolutely, And if you're
- 10:56Speaker 5: up to age eighty, you're probably looking at about six
- 10:58Speaker 5: percent roughly.
- 11:00Speaker 1: Okay, So that's it's not bad, is it relative to
- 11:03Speaker 1: paying the tax? Yeah?
- 11:05Speaker 5: Relative to the tax liability, absolutely, And I think you
- 11:08Speaker 5: know to stress on the point around health as well. Yes,
- 11:11Speaker 5: not everyone is going to get that rate, okay, you know,
- 11:15Speaker 5: particularly if you're a smoker and things as well. It
- 11:18Speaker 5: impacts the premium substantially. But I think the key kind
- 11:21Speaker 5: of starting point that I always have with clients is
- 11:24Speaker 5: that if that's the starting place, is the best case scenario,
- 11:28Speaker 5: even for clients that aren't in perfect health, you know,
- 11:31Speaker 5: maybe there are some medical concerns that lead to them
- 11:33Speaker 5: having a higher premium than the standard premium, then it's
- 11:38Speaker 5: still potentially a very cost effective way of of mitigating
- 11:41Speaker 5: that tax exposure over the seven year period.
- 11:59Speaker 2: Right prices.
- 12:01Speaker 1: Then for the longer term stuff, If I'm seventy five, yeah,
- 12:06Speaker 1: and I want a whole of life insurance for my estate, again,
- 12:11Speaker 1: that was that come as a percentage, an annual percentage
- 12:14Speaker 1: or an upfront percentage.
- 12:16Speaker 4: Roughly, Yeah, I can give you a rough steer.
- 12:19Speaker 5: I mean what I do is i'll give you I'll
- 12:20Speaker 5: give you it based on an age of seventy because
- 12:22Speaker 5: that's what I've got to bland in my brain. So
- 12:25Speaker 5: if you're if you're a single seventy year old, and
- 12:28Speaker 5: you say wanted a million pounds of whole of life insurance,
- 12:32Speaker 5: you'd be.
- 12:33Speaker 1: A million pounds is the value of my estate as
- 12:35Speaker 1: opposed to the expected value of the tax.
- 12:38Speaker 5: A million is the value of the tax. So you're
- 12:40Speaker 5: when you're insuring with the life insurance solution, you're always
- 12:43Speaker 5: ensuring the tax liability as opposed to the value of
- 12:46Speaker 5: your estate. So and you can pretty much, you know,
- 12:49Speaker 5: look at pro rata figures for lower sums. So if
- 12:52Speaker 5: we said you only wanted one hundred thousand, okay, of
- 12:56Speaker 5: whole of life insurance, you're probably looking at about something
- 12:59Speaker 5: like three third pounds a year for a whole of
- 13:01Speaker 5: life insurance policy at age seventy for an individual. Okay,
- 13:06Speaker 5: if you were married and you were both age seventy,
- 13:10Speaker 5: you'd be looking at about maybe two to two and
- 13:13Speaker 5: a half thousand.
- 13:14Speaker 4: Pounds a year.
- 13:16Speaker 1: So you have to you have to take some careful
- 13:18Speaker 1: thinking about how long you think you might live and
- 13:20Speaker 1: whether you're better off doing that or whether you're better
- 13:22Speaker 1: off putting the same amount of money into a savings
- 13:24Speaker 1: account and telling a children of designated AVIHD you there's
- 13:28Speaker 1: some thinking to do.
- 13:29Speaker 5: Around it, absolutely, but you also make a really interesting
- 13:32Speaker 5: observation there. So when we're having conversations with clients around
- 13:36Speaker 5: whole of life insurance, you know naturally that that thought
- 13:39Speaker 5: process goes into well, okay, well if I didn't pay
- 13:42Speaker 5: these insurance premiums and instead I invested the money or
- 13:45Speaker 5: put it into a savings product, Yeah, yeah, what's the
- 13:48Speaker 5: difference in the outcome?
- 13:49Speaker 4: Okay?
- 13:50Speaker 5: But there's a there's a big thing that people sometimes
- 13:52Speaker 5: overlook when they're making that comparison, which is that if
- 13:55Speaker 5: you're investing your money or if you're putting it into
- 13:58Speaker 5: a savings product, ultimately whatever that amount grows to over
- 14:02Speaker 5: your lifetime is itself going to be subject to inheritance tax. Right,
- 14:07Speaker 5: so you're going to have forty percent of that not
- 14:09Speaker 5: toss straight away on death, Whereas with life insurance, key
- 14:13Speaker 5: thing that we're not yet covered. But it's really important
- 14:16Speaker 5: that policies are held in trust or structured into a
- 14:18Speaker 5: trust once that policy is in place, which very straightforward
- 14:22Speaker 5: to do. All insurance companies provide their own standard documents
- 14:25Speaker 5: or your lawyer can can help with that. But the
- 14:28Speaker 5: proceeds of the life insurance policy are paid outside of
- 14:31Speaker 5: the estate, so when you're comparing one versus the other,
- 14:35Speaker 5: actually you've got to save it or invest and achieve
- 14:38Speaker 5: a growth rate an awful lot higher to get to
- 14:41Speaker 5: the same net position as your whole life policy pays out.
- 14:44Speaker 4: If that makes sense.
- 14:46Speaker 1: It does, and so that the trust that you put
- 14:48Speaker 1: that the insurance money into is not an individual trust,
- 14:52Speaker 1: so it was not subject to the ten year rule.
- 14:56Speaker 5: We could get very into the weeds on this, but
- 14:58Speaker 5: in theory there should be no ten yearly charges online
- 15:03Speaker 5: insurance trust. You've got to if you're looking at really
- 15:06Speaker 5: big numbers and big premiums, you've got to do some
- 15:08Speaker 5: careful planning and structuring around that.
- 15:10Speaker 4: But it's it's easy to mitigate.
- 15:12Speaker 2: That's a really interesting point.
- 15:14Speaker 3: Ha ha, John, Yes, did you have a question make
- 15:18Speaker 3: a picture level because I know that you're sort of
- 15:20Speaker 3: just specializing insurance, but is this making Yeah, are these
- 15:24Speaker 3: changes that are coming up to pensions basically good for
- 15:27Speaker 3: your business.
- 15:33Speaker 4: It does.
- 15:33Speaker 5: Yeah, you've hit the nail on the head, John. I mean, look,
- 15:36Speaker 5: not not not only the pension changes. You know, some
- 15:40Speaker 5: people that are listening impacts might have been or at
- 15:43Speaker 5: least have seen in the news all of the changes
- 15:44Speaker 5: impacting farmers sadly and the business owners which kicked in
- 15:48Speaker 5: from this six April just gone prior to that. You know,
- 15:52Speaker 5: for those that were interested, they might have seen all
- 15:56Speaker 5: the headlines around non doms leaving the UK, for example,
- 16:00Speaker 5: So that was the that was the previous April where
- 16:02Speaker 5: there were some you know, big changes to inheritance tax.
- 16:05Speaker 5: So yes, all of these changes do do help certainly
- 16:10Speaker 5: our business from from a life insurance perspective, you know, unfortunately,
- 16:15Speaker 5: certainly in terms of business relief, agriculturally changes and pension
- 16:20Speaker 5: changes coming next year. You know, these are these are
- 16:23Speaker 5: impacting people that have never probably had to think about
- 16:26Speaker 5: inheritance tax. So I don't you know, I don't I
- 16:29Speaker 5: don't forget the fact that it's you know, it's it's
- 16:31Speaker 5: really difficult for people to to to suddenly now get
- 16:35Speaker 5: their heads around having to deal with this potential tax
- 16:38Speaker 5: issue on the horizon. But hopefully, you know, not just
- 16:43Speaker 5: with life insurance, but there are planning you know, there
- 16:46Speaker 5: are planning opportunities out there still. With good advice, people
- 16:50Speaker 5: can still you know, spend it or do other things
- 16:52Speaker 5: to to you know, to to sort of mitigate.
- 16:54Speaker 4: That tax exposure.
- 16:56Speaker 5: But but yeah, I think I think life insurance has
- 16:58Speaker 5: certainly become signific to be more in demand over the
- 17:02Speaker 5: last couple of years compared to the previous what we're
- 17:06Speaker 5: talking twelve or thirteen years in my career before that,
- 17:09Speaker 5: where it was always the thing that I focused on.
- 17:11Speaker 5: It was always in demand, but just not at all
- 17:14Speaker 5: in as much demand as it is today.
- 17:17Speaker 3: When they changed the rules in the Nine Doms and
- 17:19Speaker 3: they changed it to ten years, so that you know,
- 17:22Speaker 3: the inheritance tax they have to be in hurdance tax
- 17:25Speaker 3: after ten years, but they can also made it that
- 17:28Speaker 3: if you leave the UK and you're out of the
- 17:31Speaker 3: UK for ten years, you should no longer fall the
- 17:34Speaker 3: inheritance tax. Is that correct, because in the old days
- 17:37Speaker 3: there was just no clarity on that. It didn't matter
- 17:40Speaker 3: when you moved away from the UK, you were still
- 17:43Speaker 3: inheritance tax liable.
- 17:45Speaker 5: Yeah, so so it was slightly I mean the old
- 17:47Speaker 5: rules were slightly less less clear, as you say, because
- 17:51Speaker 5: there was there was a concept of domicile that played
- 17:54Speaker 5: played a role in it. But actually the old rules
- 17:57Speaker 5: did still have a cutoff point. So the elder rules
- 18:00Speaker 5: effectively were if you had spent fifteen out of the
- 18:03Speaker 5: last twenty tax years as a UK resident tax resident,
- 18:08Speaker 5: you would be caught on a worldwide basis to inheritance tax.
- 18:11Speaker 5: What was the real fundamental shift that maybe some people
- 18:15Speaker 5: wouldn't have picked up is the fact that what people
- 18:18Speaker 5: could do pre six April twenty twenty five is settle
- 18:21Speaker 5: all of their assets offshore into and off your trust
- 18:24Speaker 5: and that would then be ring fenced for an inheritance
- 18:26Speaker 5: tax perspective in that So that's the fundamental shift beyond
- 18:31Speaker 5: just a residency point. That's the fundamental shift that happened
- 18:34Speaker 5: in April twenty twenty five. So people can't do that
- 18:37Speaker 5: planning now that they could do before. And then to
- 18:42Speaker 5: add to the fact that they've lost five years effectively
- 18:45Speaker 5: of tax residents, so once they've been here for ten
- 18:47Speaker 5: now they've got that worldwide exposure. So what we're finding
- 18:50Speaker 5: a lot of clients doing in that respect is you know, well,
- 18:54Speaker 5: as you have seen, you know, people have already left
- 18:56Speaker 5: the UK and have gone to places like Italy, places
- 18:59Speaker 5: like and the like, you know, places at are low
- 19:02Speaker 5: tax jurisdictions or offering offering alternative favorable tax tax regimes
- 19:09Speaker 5: to people. All people were of course not yet at
- 19:12Speaker 5: that tenure point, and perhaps we'll just stay here for
- 19:15Speaker 5: up to ten years before they before they leave, you know,
- 19:18Speaker 5: and perhaps within that timeframe they've they've scratched their itch
- 19:22Speaker 5: as far as the UK is concerned, or maybe they've
- 19:24Speaker 5: dealt with what they needed to do with whilst being
- 19:27Speaker 5: here in terms of career, business, etc. And again, not
- 19:31Speaker 5: to labor the point too much today because it's going
- 19:34Speaker 5: to come up as a common theme of course, but
- 19:37Speaker 5: you know, we also do get quite a lot of
- 19:38Speaker 5: clients interested in insurance to then protect that tax exposure
- 19:42Speaker 5: because you know, instead instead of believe in the UK,
- 19:46Speaker 5: what some people have done is say, well, you know,
- 19:49Speaker 5: I'm going to be in the UK for another five, ten,
- 19:51Speaker 5: fifteen years, whatever it might be. I will definitely leave,
- 19:55Speaker 5: but I just I'm not ready to leave yet. Maybe
- 19:57Speaker 5: I've got my children in school, or you know, maybe
- 19:59Speaker 5: my business is still growing things. So that's where the
- 20:02Speaker 5: term insurance solution I talked about earlier works quite well
- 20:06Speaker 5: for them because it just defers that position for them.
- 20:09Speaker 5: You know, it's not a silver bullet by any stretch,
- 20:11Speaker 5: because you know, some clients have got quite substantial levels
- 20:15Speaker 5: of wealth and the insurance solution won't necessarily keep up
- 20:18Speaker 5: with that because more often than not we set in
- 20:20Speaker 5: place of set life insurance. Some but their tax exposure
- 20:25Speaker 5: might keep increasing over time, so you know, we have
- 20:28Speaker 5: to revisit it, you know, on a periodic basis. But
- 20:32Speaker 5: it at least gives them some piece of mind to
- 20:34Speaker 5: maybe remain in the UK without feeling like they've got
- 20:37Speaker 5: this huge, huge tax clouds from an inheritance tax hanging
- 20:41Speaker 5: over them.
- 20:41Speaker 3: Because I was just one on the flip side. Is
- 20:43Speaker 3: there anything here that's changed the calculus for if you're
- 20:46Speaker 3: like normal UK residence to make sure that they try
- 20:50Speaker 3: and retire abroad ten years before they die.
- 20:52Speaker 5: I mean, that's one of the benefits really of the
- 20:54Speaker 5: regime that perhaps didn't really get the same level of
- 20:57Speaker 5: press attention than the negative. It's right, but you know,
- 21:01Speaker 5: the expac community now has has an opportunity to plan
- 21:05Speaker 5: for inheritance tax in a way that they never did previously.
- 21:09Speaker 5: So you know, as you say, if they've lived outside
- 21:11Speaker 5: the UK for more than ten ten tax years in
- 21:14Speaker 5: the last twenty, then you know that they're outside of
- 21:18Speaker 5: the tax tax net from an inheritance tax perspective on
- 21:21Speaker 5: their non UK set base, so as long as they're
- 21:23Speaker 5: taking everything outside the UK. So yeah, absolutely it's it.
- 21:28Speaker 5: But it does obviously what you can't do unfortunately, otherwise
- 21:32Speaker 5: we'd all be able to plan perfectly is understand or
- 21:35Speaker 5: time when you when your death is going to rise sadly,
- 21:38Speaker 5: so you know that's the one thing that still perhaps
- 21:41Speaker 5: is there is where the insurance solution maybe.
- 21:44Speaker 4: Has a role to play.
- 21:45Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 21:45Speaker 3: Absolutely. I just think it's interesting because no, I guess no,
- 21:48Speaker 3: that ten years is quite close to the seven years
- 21:50Speaker 3: for the gift A loans, So if you were thinking
- 21:53Speaker 3: the retire and abroad, then there's an element. Oh well,
- 21:55Speaker 3: we may as well just do it as quite as
- 21:56Speaker 3: we can so that we can get the HT clock
- 22:00Speaker 3: running on that. But yeah, also that was just it
- 22:03Speaker 3: was just something that was curious about. So I wenterful
- 22:06Speaker 3: just going to get lots of more expert pensions as
- 22:08Speaker 3: a result of this.
- 22:10Speaker 2: Yeah, where are you going to move to young to
- 22:12Speaker 2: avoid your.
- 22:12Speaker 3: H I mean, I'm very kind to find the port school. Historically,
- 22:19Speaker 3: I'm getting quite formed of grease and I'm just you know,
- 22:23Speaker 3: I'm kinda gonna need to think about my options here
- 22:26Speaker 3: and maybe go long haul.
- 22:29Speaker 2: Yeah, Rob, where are you going? What would you recommend?
- 22:32Speaker 5: So I've got I've got international connections, I guess in
- 22:35Speaker 5: terms of my work in Columbia. You know, some of
- 22:40Speaker 5: some of that side of the family live in Costa Rica.
- 22:42Speaker 5: So maybe I'll end up in in Costa Rica one day.
- 22:46Speaker 5: That was definitely definitely on the cards at one point.
- 22:49Speaker 5: We'll see how it goes and things.
- 22:52Speaker 2: How's your Spanish? Rob, Costa Rica?
- 23:00Speaker 4: It is?
- 23:00Speaker 2: So there you go, everybody.
- 23:02Speaker 1: One spend all your money to marry on your deathbed,
- 23:06Speaker 1: three get insurance, and four moved to Costa Rica.
- 23:11Speaker 2: Rob, thank you very much for joining us today.
- 23:13Speaker 4: That's all right, no pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.
- 23:21Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this week's Maren Talk to Your Money.
- 23:23Speaker 1: If you like, I'll show, rate, review and subscribe wherever
- 23:25Speaker 1: you listen to your podcast. Also, have you showed Follow
- 23:27Speaker 1: me and John on ex or Twitter at marens w
- 23:30Speaker 1: and John underscore stepic. Rob you on Twitter, I'm not
- 23:33Speaker 1: knowing sadly other social media LinkedIn so.
- 23:37Speaker 4: On for me, all right?
- 23:38Speaker 2: Find Rob on LinkedIn.
- 23:41Speaker 1: This episode was produced by some Sadi Moses and and
- 23:44Speaker 1: Jennifer Seely. Questions and comments on this show and all
- 23:46Speaker 1: our shows always welcome. Our show email is Merry Money
- 23:49Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot Net. Special thanks to Rob May