Posts Tagged: Taxman

According to one of the largest UK life insurance companies, just 1% of life policies are written in trust. That is disgraceful and reflects poorly on the financial industry.

Let’s explain.

If your life insurance policy is Written in Trust then, in the event of a claim, the insurance company pays out directly to the beneficiaries you name on the policy. The significance of this is easily missed.

It means that if the policy is Written in Trust, the proceeds from the policy never form part of your legal estate and are not subject to Inheritance Tax. The importance of this is illustrated by the following figures:

Take Mr A. He’s a widower and wants to leave everything equally to his two sons. He owns his home which is currently worth 245,000 with a 10,000 outstanding mortgage. His investments are valued at 52,000 and his car and other chattels are worth 18,000. He also owns a life insurance policy for 100,000 which is not written in trust. We assume that the costs of administering his estate and obtaining probate would be 5,000.

If Mr A were to die now, his estate would be worth 400,000 less Inheritance Tax. Inheritance Tax is currently levied at 40% on the value of his estate over and above 275,000 that means that the taxman will walk off with 50,000 and his sons would each receive 175,000.

Now lets assume exactly the same figures except that in this case the life insurance policy is Written in Trust with Mr A’s sons as equal beneficiaries. Because the life insurance company pays out directly to his sons, they each receive 50,000 straight away and non of the money is included in Mr A’s estate. This means that his estate is now worth 300,000 and the taxman can only walk away with 10,000. Each of his sons receives 20,000 more and tax-free!

So simply by signing a few forms, Mr A saves 40,000 tax!

Is there a catch? No all the documentation is standard and is provided totally free of charge by the life insurance company. Your broker through whom you buy the policy, should complete the documentation for you, again free of charge. All you have to do is give the details of the beneficiaries to the broker and sign the form. Solicitors are not required. In the event of a claim, the life insurance company then has to pay out directly to the beneficiaries. Job done! Poor Mr Taxman!

Even if your policy is designed to repay a mortgage, it should be Written in Trust for your partner. Then, rather than your estate receiving the money and using it pay off the mortgage, the money can be paid directly to your partner. This saves legal delays, solicitor’s and probate fees and loads of hassle. Your partner can then use the money to personally pay off the mortgage. Whether this also saves you Inheritance tax will depend on the value of your estate and how you have structured your Will.

So we believe that a life insurance policy Written I Trust is a win win situation. And there aren’t many of those around these days! We can’t see any drawbacks.

Bye the way, no matter what you decide to do, always ensure that you have an up-to-date Will.

At last you can buy life insurance and get tax relief. The breakthrough results from changes in the Gordon Browns’ latest Budget speech but the tax relief is only available on a new special sort of life insurance policy. You can’t get tax relief on your existing life insurance policies.

These new policies exploit a loophole in the new Finance Bill and should result in savings of between 5% and 15% for standard taxpayers and around 30% for higher taxpayers.

But there are strings attached! You can’t add extras on to your life policy such as critical illness cover and the insured sum must be a fixed sum. Neither can you have a joint policy. Basically, it has to be a bog standard, level term, single beneficiary, life insurance policy.

Then there are more restrictions, but quite honestly, these are unlikely to pose a problem to anyone unless they’re very wealthy! You can’t have one of these special life policies if the annual contributions you pay into your pension plus the life insurance premiums, exceed 215,000 per year. Furthermore, if the value of your pension fund plus the payout on your life policy exceeds 1,500,000, the current limit set by the Chancellor, then the excess will be taxed at 55%. Conventional life insurance policies are excluded from this calculation.

Tax relief on the premiums is automatically collected by the life insurance company so you pay a premium which is already reduced by standard rate tax relief. If you’re a higher rate taxpayer, you’ll have to claim the extra tax through your self-assessment tax return. However, once you’ve told your taxman about your premiums, they should automatically continue to give you the tax relief through your tax code.

So why are the savings less than the value of the tax relief? Well, the reason is that the life companies have to administer the tax relief and there are certain operational restrictions imposed by the Inland Revenue on the insurance company. This means that the basic cost of these policies is a little more than conventional life insurance but after the tax relief you should save.

As with all these loopholes, you must be aware that the Chancellor could remove the tax relief. Having said that, it is rare for a future tax change to be applied retrospectively so you are likely to be safe. Your income could also change and move you into a lower tax bracket. This would reduce your savings.

This new type of life policy is now available from most of the big UK insurers and specialist life insurance brokers. However, you won’t be able to get an online quotation you’ll have to speak on the phone to a Life Insurance Adviser.

And just to confuse matters these policies are known under a range of names: Pension Term Insurance, Life Insurance with Tax Relief, Life Protection with Tax Relief but they all mean the same thing.

Oh yes, let me confirm one miss-understanding. No, you don’t have to buy a pension at the same time!