Posts tagged "Inheritance Tax"
Mike Pugh, founder of MP Estate Planning. “Presto magic, there’s no tax.”
Mar 13, 2026 Investigations

MP Estate Planning: the unregulated firm selling defective trusts to the elderly

MP Estate Planning is an unregulated advisory firm using an extensive social media campaign to sell expensive “asset protection trusts” to elderly homeowners, often of relatively modest means. The pitch is simple: put your home into a trust and you can avoid inheritance tax, care home fees, divorce claims and creditors. Our investigation, drawing on […]
Property118 - a duff inheritance tax structure
Oct 6, 2025 Investigations

The problem with unregulated tax advisers: a scheme from Property118 that could cost clients £100k+

Most of the HMRC losses from tax avoidance aren’t from multinationals or billionaires – they’re from small businesses, who’ve often been sold disastrous schemes by unregulated advisers. It’s a mis-selling problem as much as a tax problem. This report presents one example – but the internet is full of many, many others. The media focus […]
-
Sep 28, 2025 Investigations

Did Keir Starmer use a trust to avoid inheritance tax?

When Sir Keir Starmer gave a field to his parents, he used a “life interest trust”. This meant that, as its value grew from £20k to £300k, it was outside his parents’ inheritance tax estate. UPDATE: 10am Sunday 28 September. Sir Keir just told Laura Kuenssberg that he didn’t create a trust. That is hard […]
a tractor working a field
Aug 15, 2025 Policy

A fair solution to inheritance tax on farms and small businesses

There has been a huge amount of controversy over the inheritance tax changes in last year’s Budget. They raised £500m, but hit some small farms and small businesses unfairly – whilst not stopping much existing inheritance tax avoidance. There’s a new proposal from CenTax which seems to do the impossible: protect small farms and businesses, […]
-
Nov 24, 2024 Policy

How to stop IHT avoidance but protect farmers

New data suggests that one third of the farm estates affected by the Budget changes aren’t owned by farmers – they’re held by investors for tax planning purposes. This suggests the Budget proposal doesn’t go far enough to stop avoidance, but goes too far in how it applies to actual farms. There’s a better approach […]
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Do you think inheritance tax is fair currently? (arrow showing change when context provided) Conservative Labour mYes mNo Liberal Democrats
Nov 21, 2023 Policy

Is inheritance tax really unpopular? We’ve exclusive new polling evidence

Thanks to WeThink (formerly Omnisis), we’ve conducted some opinion polling on inheritance tax. The polling confirms that inheritance tax really is deeply unpopular, and this isn’t driven by ignorance of how it works. But our polling also suggests that most of the unpopularity is driven by the details, and not the principle, of inheritance tax. […]
-
Sep 28, 2023 Analysis

An obscure loophole means Rishi Sunak’s family probably wouldn’t benefit from the abolition of inheritance tax. They’re already exempt.

Until we get clear answers, it’s reasonable to assume the Sunaks are using an offshore trust to avoid £100m+ of tax.
Effective rate 0% £35k (the UK average) 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% s% AX PoLicy Estate value (as multiple of average earnings) vs theoretical effective IHT/estate tax rate ASSOCIATES for children inheriting from two parents. UK estate value| France No IMT/estate tax: Hungary, Lithuania, Portugal (for children), Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland United Kingdom Spain Ireland Belgium Germany Chile TNefFerlands Figland Denmark Greece htaly United States my 10 20 30 40 so 60 70 20 20 109 Estate value (multiple of average earnings)
Sep 25, 2023 Analysis

How does UK inheritance tax compare with other countries?

The OECD tax database has data on inheritance tax systems across the world, and we can use that to plot theoretical estate/inheritance tax effective rates in each country. In other words, for estates going from 1x average earnings to 100x average earnings, how much tax does the estate pay, as a % of estate value? […]
-
Jul 15, 2023 Analysis

Why does inheritance tax matter politically?

Here’s an interactive map showing inheritance tax paid in each parliamentary constituency in 2019/20, and shaded by the number of estates paying inheritance tax. You should be able to zoom around with your mouse/fingers, and if you hover/touch a constituency you’ll see the data: You can see a full-screen version here, one with alternate shading […]

Legal and privacy

© 2026 Tax Policy Associates Ltd. A non-profit company limited by guarantee (no. 14053878)

RSS feed