Your Will, your legacy: who do I want to benefit from my estate?
Note: We have provided a transcript of the video if you are unable to listen to the audio. This transcript is generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and may contain errors.
You're probably already considering leaving your assets to your partner who you may want to ensure has sufficient resources to continue to have the quality of life they had during your lifetime. You may also want to leave gifts to your children and grandchildren, whose future you may want to provide for. Gifts to spouses and civil partners are generally exempt from inheritance tax, and there are some helpful planning opportunities available where you can route gifts to your children via your spouse or civil partner to mitigate tax. Ultimately, you can leave gifts to whoever you wish; nieces, nephews, godchildren, friends or, for example, your cleaner or gardener. You can make gifts both with cash and specific items, say if you knew that an item had a sentimental value to a loved one. Clients also frequently make gifts to charities. Gifts to English and UK-based charities are fully exempt from inheritance tax, and the rate of inheritance tax reduces to 36% down from 40% where a person leaves 10% or more of their estate to charity.
The more obvious individuals are your spouse / civil partner (who you may want to ensure has sufficient resources to continue to have the quality of life they had during your lifetime) and your children and grandchildren (whose future you may want to provide for).
Gifts to spouses/civil partners are generally fully exempt for inheritance tax purposes. It is, however, possible to make a gift to anyone you wish. Clients also tend to leave gifts to nieces, nephews, friends, god-children in their wills. These gifts will not be subject to tax to the extent that they collectively fall within the deceased’s available nil rate band (currently set at £325,000). Gifts to English/UK based charities are fully exempt from inheritance tax (whereas this is not necessarily the case for gifts to foreign charities). There are further tax advantages in benefiting charities when you leave 10% or more of your estate to charities. You also may wish to give an individual cash or a specific item, which has a sentimental attachment to you or the recipient, and this could be included in your will.
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Note: We have provided a transcript of the video if you are unable to listen to the audio. This transcript is generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and may contain errors.
You're probably already considering leaving your assets to your partner who you may want to ensure has sufficient resources to continue to have the quality of life they had during your lifetime. You may also want to leave gifts to your children and grandchildren, whose future you may want to provide for. Gifts to spouses and civil partners are generally exempt from inheritance tax, and there are some helpful planning opportunities available where you can route gifts to your children via your spouse or civil partner to mitigate tax. Ultimately, you can leave gifts to whoever you wish; nieces, nephews, godchildren, friends or, for example, your cleaner or gardener. You can make gifts both with cash and specific items, say if you knew that an item had a sentimental value to a loved one. Clients also frequently make gifts to charities. Gifts to English and UK-based charities are fully exempt from inheritance tax, and the rate of inheritance tax reduces to 36% down from 40% where a person leaves 10% or more of their estate to charity.
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