Inheritance tax

[glashIFA@Paramount]

Glash - if you've taken offence at what I've said I'm sorry about that.

I have some financial knowledge and did at one time work for an investment house (now sadly defunct) and what I say about the internal workings of such is pretty accurate IMO. As you probably know, things like discounted loan/gift trusts are thought up by or copied by the bod employed by the investment house to think of such things. Once the basic model and wording is set-up and has been looked at by legal, it's pretty much sell as many of these (unalterable) packages as possible i.e. hit the WP button. You'll also know that some of these products need to be sold through IFAs to be tax and legal compliant.

Of course the IFA has a range of duties imposed by the FSA or equivalent which includes filling the getting to know your client questionnaire. This means that you should have done the bulk of the work before you even discuss suitable investment opportunities. I guess that this is the 3 to 4 hours you talk about.

Its then a matter of getting a suitable investment house to provide the plan. You can hire external analysts to come up with a suitable list or you can do what I did and google discounted gift - here's the 1st link I came up with:

http://www.friendsprovident.co.uk/co...oducts/iht_dgp

How long does all that take? Days, hours?

I also note from reading the financial press that more and more IFAs are quoting fees because more and more clients are becoming aware of what is charged and want to know that they are not getting charged unreasonable rates.

I don't expect anyone to work for nothing just for the charge to fit the work done.

No offence taken Bradley, jst trying to clarify one or two things.

Lets get this thread back on track.Someone was seeking advice on IHT. Discounted Gift Schemes are just one of a range of mitigating tools available. But as i said, no-one is going to mitigate an IHT liability just by using these. There is a lot of other planning that goes on that doesn't result in a product being "sold" but this advice still needs paying for. You can't say Discounted Gift Shemes are unalterable - they're all different. The amount of immediate discount depends on health and age so they all have to be individually underwritten. After this it might mean that a DGS is totally impracticle and another route has to be found. Like i said DGSs are just one option and, if I'm honest, not one that i use too often because, as advised in the thread, they are a bit of a gamble, all investment backed vehicles are but if it fits the clients situation then - why not? An immediate 40% tax saving has to be considered. With regard to more and more IFAs offering fees - they're offered all right but a surprising number of clients don't want to pay them - it's seen as an extra cost to some because they physically have to write a cheque instead of commission coming from the product.

The ifa market is shrinking at a rapid rate and clients are perfectly entitled to vote with their feet. I'm happy to charge fees which are reasonable and retain my clients - new ones are expensive to obtain!!

[Bradley]

One track mind

Lets get this thread back on track.Someone was seeking advice on IHT. Discounted Gift Schemes are just one of a range of mitigating tools available. But as i said, no-one is going to mitigate an IHT liability just by using these.

Hi Glash - yes it was these schemes I particularly object to because of the uncertainties and the costs. They aren't the panacea they purport to be.