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Estate Planning & Trusts

Your estate includes your property, possessions, savings and investments

What is a Trust?

A Trust is a legal method / process of managing your assets (money, investments, land or buildings). There are different types of trusts and they are taxed differently. The key participants are:

the ‘settlor’ – the person who puts assets into a Trust

the ‘trustee’ – the person who manages the Trust

the ‘beneficiary’ – the person who benefits from the Trust

Trusts are set up to:

control and protect family assets and handle the affairs of someone who is considered too young
handle the affairs of someone who is incapacitated
pass on assets while you’re still alive
pass on assets when you die (a ‘Will Trust’)

What is the Inheritance Tax allowance?

Whenever someone dies the value of their estate becomes liable for Inheritance Tax. If you are domiciled in the UK, your estate includes everything you own, including your home and certain trusts in which you may have an interest. However, everyone is entitled to pass on assets of up to £325,000 IHT free this is called the Nil Rate Band.

Married couples and registered civil partners can share their Nil Rate Band, transferring the unused element of their Inheritance Tax -free allowance to their living spouse when they die. Doubling up the relief means a married couple or registered civil partnership have a combined Nil Rate Band allowance of £650,000.

In April 2017 an extra allowance was introduced by the government when a residence is passed to a ‘lineal descendant’. This is known as the Residence Nil Rate Band, and like the standard Nil Rate Band unused elements of the allowance are transferable to a surviving spouse or registered civil partner.

In the 2017-18 tax year, the Residence Nil Rate Band was £100,000 per person. This meant a married couple with children could pass on a maximum of £850,000 in total without having to pay Inheritance Tax – two lots of £325,000 (£650,000) and two lots of £100,000 (£200,000). The will rise by £25,000 per annum up to £175,000 in April 2020, at which point couples will be able to leave up to £1m tax free when they die. Any excess over this amount is then taxed at 40%.

Why use a trust?

At Philip Anthony Associates we come across circumstances on a daily basis where trusts should be set up in your lifetime or to take effect upon death. Trusts can be very flexible and can also be efficient for tax planning, they can also protect assets from various potential threats. Below are some advantages of placing assets into trust.

Protection against “Sideways Disinheritance”- Prevent your direct bloodline (children and grandchildren) losing out in the event of your dying and your surviving partner remarrying. If you simply leave your estate to your partner and they remarry and subsequently die, it is common for the estate your partner inherited from you to pass to the family of the new partner. A Trust can stop this.

Protecting the vulnerable - Prevent the situation arising whereby a child with disabilities could lose benefits if they inherit from you through a Will. Inheriting via a Trust means that benefits are not affected.

Protecting your Children’s inheritance - Prevent an inheritance left to a child who is facing problems (divorce, bankruptcy, addition disorder or many other situations which are often impossible to predict) can be distributed to that child in such a way that it won’t be squandered or misused.

Probate Costs - Any assets that are held in a Trust can be distributed immediately – thereby removing the need, and the huge cost and time delays, of probate.