Naturally, the starting point of any discussion concerning your assets must be the assurance that your own needs are catered for.
For example, at some point in the future you may require some form of Long-Term Care.
Whilst you may be fit and healthy at the moment, you don’t know what may happen and the last thing you want to be doing is managing your IHT liability by giving money away in good faith and then finding out that you need it back to pay for your care.
It’s a fine balance between holding funds back to ensure that your own needs are catered for and then finding that keeping too much back has generated an Inheritance Tax bill for your beneficiaries.
IHT is a very complex regime as well as a very personal one, so we do encourage you to seek advice if you think that IHT may be an issue for you and your beneficiaries. With careful estate planning, IHT can be less of an issue to many families, but advice is crucial.
However, for whatever solutions we discuss, either within this guide or with you personally, the starting point will always be to take your own needs into account. Changes to death benefits are also very important. It’s these that we’ll discuss here, and we’ll assume that you’ve funded a Personal Pension to a certain level and now wish to draw benefits from it.