Posted: 23 / 11 / 2017
Pleasingly there was no stealth attack on pensions for a change, and the beneficial, tax advantageous pensions freedom laws remain intact.
With this, the lifetime allowance has now started to increase by inflation from historically the lowest level since the introduction. But don’t get too excited as it increased by only £30,000 for a person’s lifetime.
Most worrying is the announcement of a consultation on the taxation of “Trusts”, which are common place and legitimately used to protect families and business assets, and ultimately ensure that the right people benefit from those assets. This could be, for example, placing life policies into trust for someone’s dependents or other shareholders within businesses. However, a minority of organisations and high net worth individuals use Trusts for advanced tax avoidance.
I am therefore concerned that genuine trust planning will be muddled with the darker side of Trusts, and thus lead to the introduction of new anti-avoidance laws.
You can read (or download) all of the key tax measure updates and changes which may affect you, your family for free here…
(Download the PDF here.)
If you have any questions about how these updates affect you, please call 0161 236 9077 or email [email protected].