The Way Group has launched a product which it claims offers a portfolio with complete inheritance tax relief after seven years.
The Managed Portfolio Flexible Inheritor plan offers investors the opportunity to lodge their investment portfolios with trustees.
Paul Wilcox, chairman of the Way Group, said investors can do this while still having full access and tax benefits normally associated with similar freestanding portfolios.
Mr Wilcox said: “We have launched this service at a time when the number of UK families paying inheritance tax is at a 35-year high as surging house prices push the value of family assets above a static tax threshold.
“There is no shortage of investment wrappers which protect against income and capital gains tax, but nothing on the market to protect an investment portfolio from inheritance tax.”
The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast the number of deaths subject to inheritance tax will more than double in the period between 2013 to 2014 and 2018 to 2019, reaching 54,500 – or 10 per cent of deaths.
In October, the latest publicly available data on tax receipts showed 2012 to 2013 saw inheritance tax paid on 17,900 estates with a total bill of £3.05bn – a 15 per cent increase on the £2.65bn total paid in the previous tax year.
Adviser View
Gretchen Betts, a financial planner with Bridgend-based Broadway Financial Planning, said: “IHT is always something that is in the forefront of client’s minds so the more products that are available then the wider choice you can give them.
“One of the biggest things we seem to have is people wanting to do inheritance tax planning but wanting to keep control and not gift that money so that is where a product can be really attractive.”
