Inheritance tax in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, inheritance tax is a transfer tax. It was introduced with effect from 18 March 1986, replacing capital transfer tax. The UK has the fourth highest inheritance tax rate in the world, according to conservative think tank, the Tax Foundation, though only a very small proportion of the population pays it; 3.7% of deaths recorded in the UK in the 2020–21 tax year resulted in inheritance tax liabilities.

History

Before the introduction of estate duty by the Finance Act 1894, there was a complex system of different taxes relating to the inheritance of property, that applied to either realty or personalty :

From 1694, probate duty, introduced as a stamp duty on wills entered in probate, applied to personalty.
From 1780, legacy duty was an inheritance duty paid by the receiver of personalty, graduated according to consanguinity.
From 1853, succession duty, a duty introduced by the Succession Duty Act 1853, applied to realty settlements, taking effect on the death of the settlor.
From 1881, account duty applied as an anti-avoidance duty on lifetime gifts made to avoid paying legacy duty.
From 1885, corporation duty applied to the annual value of certain property vested in corporate and unincorporated bodies that would otherwise have avoided any of the above duties.
From 1889, estate duty was levied as an additional stamp duty on estates and successions greater than £10,000 in value.

In 1894, estate duty replaced probate duty, account duty, certain additional succession duties, and temporary estate duty.
Legacy duty and succession duty were later abolished by the Finance Act 1949, followed by the abolition of corporation duty by the Finance Act 1959. The three-year period for gifts made prior to death was extended to five years by the Finance Act 1946, and then to seven years by the Finance Act 1969.
Estate duty became more progressive in scale, eventually peaking in 1969 with the highest marginal rate fixed at 85% of amounts in excess of £750,000, provided that total duty did not exceed 80% of the value of the total estate.
Estate duty was abolished with the passage of the , which created the capital transfer tax, with the following characteristics:
Capital transfer tax was reduced in scope during the Thatcher years, with most lifetime gifts removed by the . The tax was renamed as inheritance tax.

Framework of IHT

Estate on death

For IHT purposes, a person's estate includes:

The aggregate of all the property, other than excluded property and specified interests in possession, to which he is beneficially entitled;
Beneficial entitlement includes the general power to dispose or charge money on any property;
Except where otherwise provided, the person's liabilities must be taken into account, but it does not include liability with respect to any other tax that may arise on the transfer, and a liability incurred by a transferor shall be taken into account only to the extent that it was incurred for a consideration in money or money's worth.

Excluded property comprises:

Property situated outside the United Kingdom, where the person beneficially entitled to it is an individual domiciled outside the United Kingdom;
Decorations and awards granted for valour or gallant conduct, and which have never been the subject of a disposition for a consideration in money or money's worth; and
Certain specified securities.

Relief is also granted, where the value of the estate is reduced with respect to specified business property, agricultural property, woodlands, certain transfers made within three years of death made at a diminished value, and certain other cases.

Chargeable transfers before death

Deductions will be made from an estate's nil rate band with respect to transfers of value made in excess of specified limits, other than "potentially exempt transfers" made more than seven years before the transferor's death. Transfers of value made within specified limits are known as "exempt transfers".
Transfers of value will also include gifts arising from the amount by which an asset is sold for less than it could have been sold on the open market, as for a sale from a parent to a child. Gifts can also arise where:

a lease is granted at less than full market rent, shares in a private company are rearranged, rights in such shares are altered, or there has been agreement to act as a guarantor for someone else's debts
transfers of value, at a loss to the donor, have been made to certain trusts
premiums have been paid on a life insurance policy for the benefit of someone else
the deceased ceased to have a right to a benefit from a trust or settlement

Where the value of such transfers exhausts the amount available to the nil rate band, IHT is assessed on the excess amount, to which the recipients of such transfers bear the liability to pay.

Types of estates exempt from IHT

For deaths occurring on or after 1 September 2006, the following estates are effectively excepted from liability for IHT:

Type	Qualifying conditions
Low value estates	the deceased died domiciled in the United Kingdom the gross value of the estate does not exceed the Inheritance Tax nil rate band if the estate includes any assets in trust, they are held in a single trust and the gross value does not exceed £150,000 if the estate includes foreign assets, their gross value does not exceed £100,000 if there are any specified transfers, their chargeable value does not exceed £150,000 the deceased had not made a gift with reservation of benefit gifts out of income totalling more than £3,000 in any year must be shown in full no charge arises on the individual's death under any of the provisions relating to alternatively secured pensions For claims to transfer the unused nil rate band from the estate of a predeceased spouse or civil partner, the following additional conditions apply: the full nil rate band must be available to transfer from the earlier death so that the deceased's nil rate band is increased by 100% there is only one predeceased spouse or civil partner a suitable claim is made to transfer the unused nil rate band
Exempt estates	Where the gross value of the estate does not exceed £1 million and there is no tax to pay because either or both conditions relating to transfers to a spouse or civil partner, or absolute gifts to one or more charities, applies, and no other exemption or relief can be taken into account. The conditions for these estates are that: the deceased and the deceased's spouse or civil partner have always been domiciled in the UK the gross value of the estate does not exceed £1 million and the net chargeable value of the estate after deduction of liabilities and Spouse or Civil Partner Exemption and/or Charity Exemption only does not exceed the Inheritance Tax threshold if the estate includes any assets in trust, they are held in a single trust and the gross value does not exceed £150,000 if the estate includes foreign assets, their gross value does not exceed £100,000 if there are any specified transfers, their chargeable value does not exceed £150,000, and the deceased had not made a gift with reservation of benefit gifts out of income of more than £3,000 in any year must be shown in full no charge arises on the individual's death under any of the provisions relating to alternatively secured pensions In Scotland, spousal and charity exemptions must be calculated on the basis that any entitlement to legitim against the estate will be claimed in full.
Foreign domiciliaries	Where the gross value of the estate in the UK does not exceed £150,000. The conditions for these estates are that: the deceased died domiciled outside the UK the deceased was never domiciled in the UK or treated as domiciled in the UK for Inheritance Tax purposes the deceased's UK estate consisted only of cash or listed shares and securities passing under a will or intestacy or by survivorship
Blue Light Exemption	When a member or former member of the armed forces dies as a result of injuries or disease sustained while on active service their whole estate is exempt. The Finance Act 2015 extended this to individuals who work in emergency situations. This would include care workers who die as a result of COVID-19 including people who lose their life at any point in the future if a clear link to the coronavirus can be proven.

Rate of tax

Tax is assessed at 40% of the net value of the estate, after application of the nil rate band. The applicable nil rate band will depend on the date of death: if the date falls at any time from 6 August to 5 April in a given tax year, the current year's band will apply; but, where the date is after 5 April but before 6 August, and application for a grant is filed before 6 August, the prior year's band will apply.
For deaths occurring after 5 April 2012, the tax is assessed at 36%, where at least 10% of a specified baseline amount of the estate has been bequeathed as charitable gifts. For purposes of calculation, the property of the estate is separated into three components, each of which is tested to see if the charitable gifts are sufficient to qualify for the lesser rate:
If applicable gifts meet the 10% threshold for a given component, in certain circumstances, upon election, the 36% rate applies to the whole estate. There are several options available for estates to be able to achieve that threshold, such as having the will specifying relevant gifts in terms of percentages of assets, or successors executing a deed of variation to attain the desired result.

Nil-rate band

The Chancellor of the Exchequer's Autumn Statement on 9 October 2007 announced that with immediate effect inheritance tax allowances were to be transferable between married couples and between civil partners. Thus, for the 2007/8 tax year, a married couple will in effect have an allowance of £600,000 against inheritance tax, whilst a single person's allowance remains at £300,000. The mechanism for this enhanced allowance is that on the death of the second spouse to die, the nil rate band for the second spouse is increased by the percentage of the nil-rate band which was not used on the death of the first spouse to die.
For example, if in 2007/08 the first married spouse to die were to leave £120,000 to their children and the rest of their estate to their spouse, there would be no inheritance tax due at that time and £180,000 or 60% of the nil-rate band would be unused. Later, upon the second death the nil-rate band would be 160% of the allowance for a single person, so that if the surviving spouse also died in 2007/08 the first £480,000 of the surviving spouse's estate would be exempt from inheritance tax. If the surviving spouse died in a later year when the nil-rate band had reached £350,000, the first £560,000 of the estate would be tax exempt.
This measure was also extended to existing widows, widowers and bereaved civil partners on 9 October 2007. If their late spouse or partner had not used all of their inheritance tax allowance at the time of the spouse's death, then the unused percentage of that allowance can now be added to the single person's allowance when the surviving spouse or partner dies. This applies irrespective of the date on which the first spouse died, but special rules apply if the surviving spouse remarries.
In a judgement following an unsuccessful appeal to a 2006 decision by the European Court of Human Rights, it was held that the above does not apply to siblings living together. The crucial factor in such cases was determined to be the existence of a public undertaking, carrying with it a body of rights and obligations of a contractual nature, rather than the length or supportive nature of the relationship.
Prior to this legislative change, the most common means of ensuring that both nil-rate bands were used was called a nil band discretionary trust. This is an arrangement in both wills which says that whoever is the first to die leaves their nil band to a discretionary trust for the family, and not to the survivor. The survivor can still benefit from those assets if needed, but they are not part of that survivor's estate.
As the Government seeks not to profit from the death of those who gave their lives in military service, or died from the results of a wound, injury, or disease associated with that military service, that the estates of such servicemen and women are exempt, totally, from any Inheritance Tax regardless of the value of the estate even if it amounts to millions of pounds, and that that exemption is then transferable to the serviceman's or servicewoman's widow or widower. That they do qualify as at or may be certified by application to the British MOD "Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre". The JCCC then inform the HMRC of that decision. The exemption does not apply to ex-servicemen or servicewomen who die from other causes unrelated to their military service.