The City Cottons on to the IHT con
8:09pmBy Fraser Nelson
Pennies are dropping in the city about the inheritance tax con. Here is Nigel May at MacIntyre Hudson:
"The Chancellor has done some wonderful arithmetic here by adding together two allowances that already exist, and passing it off as doubling the allowance. Any married couple receiving advice about reducing their inheritance tax bill would have been able to use both allowances by either passing on assets or using a nil-rate discretionary trust on the death of the first spouse."Does the Treasury really believe it's worth this, just to fool the TV news for a few hours? Truly pathetic.
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Mark
October 9th, 2007 8:52pm Report this commentThe media took it hook line and sinker though, I was astounded that NONE of the initial reports twigged this was smoke and mirrors (2 x £300k = £600k) and reported it as a decrease.
Mrs Beryl Mallalieu
October 10th, 2007 1:46pm Report this commentI noticed this immediately as Alister Darling stressed that it was a combined allowance. This change only benefits couples where one partner has no assets to leave, so giving the spouse a £600,000 allowance. Presumably if the first to die uses up half of the allowance the spouse only has an allowance of £300,000 as now.
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