Family left with £20k IHT bill because of out-of-date tax advice

Frozen tax thresholds and dated guidance helped drag the estate into an inheritance tax liability despite extensive use of gifting to avoid a bill

Last Will and Testament document in picture beside calculator.
(Image credit: courtneyk via Getty Images)

A family has told MoneyWeek how they were left having to pay a £20,000 inheritance tax bill after their mother died because she had relied on informal tax advice from a former accountant.

When Jane Smith, not her real name, died in 2021, she thought she had got her affairs so well in order that her four children would have no inheritance tax to pay.

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Laura Miller

Laura Miller is an experienced financial and business journalist. Formerly on staff at the Daily Telegraph, her freelance work now appears in the money pages of all the national newspapers. She endeavours to make money issues easy to understand for everyone, and to do justice to the people who regularly trust her to tell their stories. She lives by the sea in Aberystwyth. You can find her tweeting @thatlaurawrites