Advisers should not be forced to compromise IHT advice

It is bad enough having to pay IHT, but advisers and clients should not have to face limitations in the options they consider

No tax is ever popular, but something about inheritance tax (IHT) stirs strong feelings in the general public. A fierce public debate raged last summer, ending in a crescendo in the autumn when the Tories announced at their party conference that they would more than double the threshold to £1m. The Chancellor soon met this initiative with a legislative riposte, which now enables couples to transfer and combine their allowances, the net result for many being an effective doubling of their allowance. In the last Budget, Gordon Brown said only 6% of estates pay IHT. But even after the chang...