There is quite a nifty cartoon doing the rounds. It involves a farmer and his son leaning on a farm gate and gazing over the fields that have been in their family for 100 years. The father turns to his heir and says: “One day, son, this will all be Rachel Reeves’s.”
As well as being quite funny, it also delivers a powerful message about inheritance and the new government’s policy on it. The October Budget has been framed as being either anti-business or as a fair way of raising tax receipts by targeting those who can most afford it. Your view on that will depend on where you sit politically.
The big corporations are lobbying hard for the removal of the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions, saying it will cost jobs and stifle growth. While having some sympathy with that, Tesco et al do still seem to be making decent profits!
The NHS is protected from the National Insurance rise as the government has found some extra cash. So the good old private sector is picking up that slack as well.
Having said that, I suppose the adage that everyone believes higher taxes are needed to support public services as long as they are not the ones paying them is as true today as it ever was.
Our accountant has been putting pressure on me to update my will. With the alterations to inheritance tax on businesses and a change in my personal circumstances, my wife duly went to see our solicitor to update our wills and do some proper tax planning.
In the time since we did our original wills, a lot has changed. Children and the value of the business being the biggest factors, so an update was undoubtedly needed. I am hoping to be around for a long time yet, but you never know, and I do not want to leave a financial mess behind if I was to go early.
Coach operations, like farms, are often passed down the generations and can have quite complicated structures. The owner may have some children who work in the business and others who do not. Are things set up so that assets are divided in a fair way, whatever that is?
It does not take a death for us to fall foul of the regulators. The Traffic Commissioners take a dim view if you move from being a partnership to a limited company without telling them. I know of a coach operator that was removed from a local authority framework because its directors had changed.
Naturally, all these things are not something most of us wish to dwell on. But probably all of us should ensure that our affairs are in order; the correct name on the O-Licence, and if you want to leave 15 coaches to the local dogs’ home, have it laid down in writing.
That way, if you do choke on your festive mince pie, then your assets will end up where you want them to. Once Rachel has had her 40%, of course.
