Dealing with an estate, or planning to pass wealth to your family? We explain Inheritance Tax in plain English, use every allowance and relief, and help you plan gifts so more of what you have built goes to the people you love.
Inheritance Tax
Inheritance Tax (IHT) is charged at 40 per cent on the part of an estate above the tax-free thresholds. Everyone has a nil-rate band of £325,000, and a further residence nil-rate band of up to £175,000 when a home passes to direct descendants, and any unused band can pass to a surviving spouse, so a couple can often pass on up to £1 million tax-free. Above that, planning and the right reliefs make a real difference.
Your Tax Help Accountants helps on both sides: families administering an estate who need the IHT position worked out and reliefs claimed, and people who want to plan ahead using gifts, allowances and exemptions to reduce a future bill. We are not a substitute for a solicitor on probate, but we handle the tax, the calculations, the exemptions and the planning, clearly and at a fixed fee.
Most IHT planning is about using allowances early and keeping records of gifts. The annual £3,000 gift exemption, gifts out of surplus income, and the seven-year rule on larger gifts can move significant value out of your estate over time, but only if they are documented properly.
The Detail That Matters
Inheritance Tax is charged at 40% on the part of an estate above the available allowances, but with careful use of the nil-rate bands, the spouse exemption, and lifetime gifting, most families can reduce or remove it entirely. Planning early is what makes the difference.
Every estate has a £325,000 nil-rate band. A residence nil-rate band of up to £175,000 is added when a home passes to direct descendants, though it tapers away for estates over £2m. A married couple can combine unused bands, so a surviving spouse can have up to £1m of allowances before any 40% charge.
Anything left to a UK-domiciled spouse or civil partner is completely free of Inheritance Tax, and their unused nil-rate bands transfer to you. This is the backbone of most planning: the first death is usually tax-free, and the bands are preserved for the second.
Most gifts are potentially exempt: give something away and survive seven years and it falls out of your estate entirely. Die within seven years and it is counted back, though taper relief reduces the tax on gifts made three to seven years before death. The £3,000 annual exemption, small gifts, and gifts out of surplus income are immediately exempt.
Leaving 10% or more of your estate to charity cuts the rate on the rest from 40% to 36%. Business Relief and Agricultural Relief can take qualifying business or farm assets out of charge, though these reliefs are being restricted from April 2026, which makes reviewing them now important.
The most expensive mistake is doing nothing: relying on the bands alone while the estate grows, when a programme of exempt gifting and proper use of the residence nil-rate band could have removed the charge over a few years.
Key Figures
How We Help
For families administering an estate, we work out the Inheritance Tax position, apply the nil-rate and residence nil-rate bands, and make sure every exemption and relief is claimed.
Advice on lifetime gifts, the annual exemptions, gifts out of surplus income, and the seven-year rule, so you can pass wealth to family and reduce a future IHT bill, with the records HMRC expects.
Business and agricultural reliefs, the residence nil-rate band, and spousal transfers used to bring the taxable estate down, with a clear plan you and your family understand.
All the forms, calculations and correspondence handled on your behalf, so you never have to decode HMRC's rules or sit on hold.
A clear fixed fee quoted after a free call, your position explained in plain English, and never a surprise bill.
We act quickly, and where earlier years are involved we put those right too, reclaiming refunds or minimising penalties.
Inheritance Tax at 40 per cent can take a large slice of an estate that could have been reduced with a little planning. Families often overpay because exemptions and reliefs are missed during estate administration, and individuals lose the chance to gift because it was never documented. We handle both, clearly and without jargon.
Recent Client Outcome
A widowed client had an estate of about £1.35m, including the family home, and assumed a large Inheritance Tax bill was unavoidable for their children.
What we did. We claimed the transferable nil-rate band and residence nil-rate band from their late spouse, giving close to £1m of combined allowances. We set up a programme of annual exempt gifts and regular gifts out of surplus income, and structured a larger gift as a potentially exempt transfer with the seven-year clock started and recorded.
The outcome. The immediately available allowances covered about £1m, cutting the taxable estate to roughly £350,000, and the ongoing gifting programme is steadily reducing that further, with the large gift due to fall out of the estate entirely at year seven.
The projected Inheritance Tax fell from around £140,000 to a fraction of that, and towards nil if the client survives the gifting timeline.
Why People Come to Us
Questions Answered
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