- BPR
From an IHT perspective, successful BPR planning typically requires the investor to hold the shares for at least two years, retain them until death, and for the company shares to qualify for BPR at that time. Rather than plan early, this might lead clients to a plan later approach which isn’t necessarily a good thing.
- Trust
In contrast, clients who are planning to mitigate IHT by gifting are likely to adopt a planning now approach to start that seven-year clock running as soon as possible. The merit of this approach is that the investor is incentivised to act now. The benefit of planning now? It can take place in a known environment i.e. tried and tested under current tax rules. Also, many clients like to gift now to enjoy seeing their family benefit. Delayed planning can prevent that, and those clients may also be at the mercy of future tax measures which unfortunately have the habit of being less benign than current rules.