Inheritance Tax & Estate Planning
You’ve spent years building your wealth, so why let a chunk of it disappear into the taxman’s pocket? When the time is right, Lucent are here to help you navigate the complexity of inheritance tax and estate planning.
How We Help People Who Need IHT & Estate Planning
Without proper planning, inheritance tax (IHT) can eat away at your estate, leaving your loved ones with less than you intended.
At Lucent, we believe that smart inheritance tax and estate planning should be part of your overall financial strategy. Our holistic and tailored approach ensures that your legacy is protected and passed on efficiently, minimising the tax burden on your family and keeping your wishes front and centre.
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What Could Be Holding You Back?
When it comes to inheritance tax and estate planning, most people underestimate how much IHT could impact the wealth they leave behind. Here's what you might be pondering:
You might be wondering how much of your estate will be subject to tax, or whether your current plan is efficient enough. Perhaps you haven’t thought about gifting assets during your lifetime to reduce your estate’s value, or maybe you haven’t even written a will yet—leaving your family vulnerable to disputes and unnecessary tax bills.
Business owners face additional concerns. Passing your business on to the next generation or selling it requires careful planning to minimise taxes and ensure smooth succession. Without a plan that aligns both your business and personal assets, your family could be left facing higher taxes or a complicated handover process. If you haven’t looked into business relief, you could be missing out on key strategies to protect your company from hefty inheritance tax liabilities.
Why This Needs Sorting—Fast
Ignoring inheritance tax and estate planning can have some serious consequences:
- Individuals and Families: Failing to plan properly could mean up to 40% of your estate above the inheritance tax threshold gets swallowed up by taxes, leaving your heirs with far less than expected. Without a will or trust in place, your family could face confusion, disputes, or even legal battles that could tear them apart during an already difficult time.
- Business Owners: The stakes are just as high. Without a clear succession plan, your business could face financial difficulties, forcing your heirs to sell off parts of the company just to cover the tax bill. Not having a strategy in place could also mean your business assets are taxed inefficiently, costing your family both time and money. And if you haven’t integrated your business assets into your personal estate plan, you’re leaving a lot to chance.
Lucent’s Smart Solution to Inheritance Tax & Estate Planning
At Lucent, we don’t leave anything to chance. We help you create a comprehensive estate plan that minimises your inheritance tax liability and ensures your wealth is passed on according to your wishes. Our approach is simple: we integrate your estate planning into your full financial plan, making sure every aspect of your wealth is managed in the most tax-efficient way.
We provide tax-efficient estate planning strategies. This includes setting up trusts, reviewing your will, and helping you understand gifting allowances that can reduce the size of your taxable estate. We ensure that your estate is structured in a way that keeps inheritance tax to a minimum, so your heirs get more of what you worked so hard to build.
Our business succession planning ensures a smooth transfer of your company, whether you’re selling it or passing it on to the next generation. We’ll help you navigate business relief and other tax-efficient strategies to keep your business assets protected from high inheritance tax liabilities. And we make sure your personal and business assets are aligned in a cohesive estate plan, so there’s no confusion or unnecessary tax hits down the line.
Why Inheritance Tax & Estate Planning Matters
Without a solid financial plan, your wealth could take a significant hit from inheritance tax. But it’s not just about the numbers—it’s about ensuring your family is looked after and your wishes are respected.
A well-structured estate plan will protect your wealth, reduce tax liabilities, and ensure that what you leave behind goes to the people you care about. Estate planning also helps avoid potential family disputes by laying everything out clearly and legally. And with strategic use of trusts, gifts, and tax-efficient investments, we will help you pass on more of your wealth while keeping the taxman at bay.
How IHT & Estate Planning Fits Into Your Full Financial Plan
At Lucent, we take a holistic approach. Inheritance tax and estate planning aren’t separate from the rest of your financial plan—they’re part of the bigger picture. We ensure that your estate plan is aligned with your overall financial strategy, including tax planning, retirement planning, and financial protection.
Our financial planning service includes:
Tax Planning
We structure your estate to minimise tax liabilities, ensuring your family benefits as much as possible.
Retirement Planning & Pensions
We align your retirement plan with your estate plan, making sure any unused pension funds are passed on tax-efficiently.
Financial Protection
We help safeguard your estate with life insurance and other financial protection policies to cover any potential tax liabilities.
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3 Common Pitfalls We Help You Avoid
1. Tax Liability
One of the biggest mistakes we see is underestimating inheritance tax liability. Many people don’t realise how much tax their estate could face or assume they’re under the threshold when they’re not.
2. Wills
Another common issue is failing to create or update a will. Without one, your wealth might not be distributed the way you intend, and your family could end up paying more in taxes than necessary.
3. Business Succession Planning
Business owners also struggle with succession planning, which can lead to financial strain on the business or higher taxes for heirs.
Ready to protect your legacy?
Contact us today to ensure your legacy is protected and passed on with minimal tax liabilities.
- Are you concerned about minimising inheritance tax for your beneficiaries?
- Do you need assistance with structuring your estate to maximise the wealth passed on to future generations?
- Are you looking for professional advice on legacy planning and the best way to leave an inheritance?
- Would you like guidance on using trusts or other strategies to protect your estate?
If you answer yes to the above, get in touch.
FAQs
Estate planning involves organising your financial affairs to manage and distribute your assets both during your lifetime and after your death. In the UK, effective estate planning is essential to ensure your wishes are honoured, your loved ones are cared for, and your tax liabilities are minimised.
An estate plan becomes necessary as soon as you acquire significant assets or have dependents who rely on you financially.
When it comes to estate planning, a financial planner evaluates tax implications and seeks to minimise the financial burden on your heirs. Their holistic approach to managing your wealth and responsibilities ensures peace of mind for you and security for your beneficiaries.
Inheritance tax is charged at 40% on the value of your estate over the IHT threshold, currently set at £325,000 per person plus you might be entitled to an additional allowance if you are leaving your house to direct descendants. We can help reduce this through allowances, gifts, and trusts.
We design a tax-efficient estate plan tailored to your personal and business assets, ensuring your estate is structured to minimise tax liabilities for your heirs.
Trusts allow you to control how your assets are distributed, reduce inheritance tax liability, and provide protection for vulnerable beneficiaries or children.
If you don't give us all the information, you’ll get a plan with holes in it. We need that information understand the extent of the problem, when we know that, we can plan effectively.
The documents you need will vary depending on your personal situation and whether you run a business.
If you're married and leaving your home to your children, then estates in excess of £1 million could do with additional planning. If single, then anything over £325,000 could suffer inheritance tax.
Approximate guesses are fine. Numbers change daily anyway, so a rough idea is fine.
They may have differing opinions to yours and so it is vital you are both aware of them and joined up on this matter.
It depends on what has been put in place! The time we have left is reducing every day, so chop chop!
Once a year as a minimum, but we are open to you whenever you need us.
Still have questions?
If you've got a question we haven't answered, we'd love to hear from you.