Rosalind Connor talked with us for an hour, answering questions throughout. It is great to have a quality solicitor sharing her knowledge, her time and her slides.
Here is a video for those who couldn’t make it.
Below it are her slides
Here is my favorite comment
Hello Henry,
Consolidating pots
The above details look interesting.
However the lady being a Pensions Lawyer, did she mention to you that HMRC has laid out many of the details around how IHT on pensions will work, when it comes into place next April.
Citywire has just published an article on this point and their readers comments are not good. If you haven’t already seen it, you can find the article at:
https://citywire.com/new-model-adviser/news/hmrc-lays-out-technically-demanding-iht-on-pensions-rules/a2489640
However for anyone else who does not subscribe to Citywire, the details are:
HMRC lays out ‘technically demanding’ IHT on pensions rules
By Jack Gilbert
Personal representatives must take ‘reasonable steps’ to track down all pensions held by deceased members when pensions fall under inheritance tax (IHT) from next April.
In an update, which has included many of the previously unknown details of how the policy will work, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has laid out what will be required for personal representatives, who are often the family members or friends of the deceased.
‘Personal representatives should take reasonable steps to identify any pension schemes from which death benefits may be payable,’ the update said.
‘In practice this usually involves looking through all the deceased’s papers, records and bank accounts and speaking to known relatives, beneficiaries, advisers and business partners. They will need to contact the pension schemes and insurance companies to inform them of the death and request information.’
Law firm Irwin Mitchell said this process of finding pension schemes will be highly challenging, as ‘families often face fragmented records, historic workplace schemes and multiple providers’ as well as having to find passwords to access online records.
HMRC said pension schemes should begin to encourage their members to keep up-to-date records, to ‘significantly ease the administrative burden on their personal representative’.
Once all the pension schemes are tracked down, providers will supply PRs with valuations and who is due money, while the PR must calculate what, if any, IHT is owed, using a new HMRC tool.
Other details from HMRC’s update include confirmation:
• death-in-service benefits, which are often lump sums paid to a spouse, will not be included in the IHT calculations;
• pension payments to spouses or UK resident civil partner are also not covered by the IHT changes;
• where at least 10% of a person’s net estate is left to a UK charity, their IHT rate is 36%, instead of 40%;
• an outline of how property held in pensions should be valued for the purpose of calculating any IHT due.
Penny Cogher, pensions partner at Irwin Mitchell, said HMRC’s note shows ‘how technically demanding pension related inheritance tax will be in practice’.
‘Pension scheme administrators will be looking for scheme members to take more upfront responsibility with their pension savings in this regard and for all ages of scheme members to have clear, up to date, expression of wishes forms lodged online with the pension providers,’ she said.
**********************
On the face of it, it does look a ‘minefield’ for the ordinary person and a possible ‘beanfeast’ for Probate lawyers.
We can comfort ourselves that the favoured Non-doms will not be subject to this’.
Kind regards,
Tim Simpson