Planning with business assets is vital

Some assets, such as shares in an unquoted trading company, carry important reliefs for IHT. Known as Business Property Relief (BPR) and Agricultural Property Relief (APR), these reliefs can be up to 100% of the value of the assets concerned. It is important that those reliefs are preserved in Will planning by ensuring that the assets concerned are not left directly to the surviving spouse or civil partner if at all possible. Such a transfer would be exempt and if the survivor subsequently decided to dispose of the asset concerned the relief would be lost completely.