Year End Tax Review 2009/2010 Contents Lead articles The year ahead... This year, next year Pension hit Employees Too much NIC NIC and pensions Company cars Tax-free benefits Business - General Time to incorporate? His and hers Family bonus Profit and loss Show me the money Can't pay, won't pay? Turning back the clock Business - VAT Standard VAT or flat VAT? VAT goes down - must come up? European revolution A good start for VAT Happy returns? Investments Top-up savings Rainy day money Capital Gains Gains favoured Splitting gains A place in the country Holiday lets end Families Family fortunes Where there's a Will Credits and debits Piggy banks Still trustworthy? Administration Penalty shoot-out Paperwork, paperwork Pay tax later Opportunity knocks again Charity Give and save Non-Domiciled People Home and away Interest Interesting times

Where there's a Will Inheritance tax is often thought of as a tax for the rich, but it is really a tax for the unprepared - the rich have usually made their arrangements and pay very little. Although IHT is not so closely related to the tax year, an annual review of tax matters can usefully include checking the exposure to IHT and whether anything can be done to mitigate it. In particular, it is useful to have a clear and up-to-date Will, which has been drafted with tax in mind. This is particularly important if you have total assets, including a house and any insurance policies which would be paid to your estate on death, in excess of £325,000 - the current starting point for IHT (now likely to be fixed until 6 April 2011). There are a number of standard, unobjectionable measures which people can take to save very significant amounts of IHT. These include: reviewing the payees of the proceeds of insurance and pension policies - if the insured person's executors are entitled to the money on a death, there will be unnecessary IHT; giving surplus assets away as early as possible - they will fall out of IHT altogether if you survive 7 years after the gift; making regular gifts out of surplus income during lifetime rather than saving up for a big legacy on death - the regular gifts are often not chargeable at all, while the big legacy is likely to cost 40% in tax. In October 2007, the Chancellor announced an important change to the way married couples and registered civil partners are taxed if they leave property to each other when the first one dies. It's possible to leave everything to the survivor without wasting the £325,000 nil rate band. If you drew up a Will before then, you may have been advised to put in an IHT plan that's now out of date, and it's worth reviewing it. If you haven't done the planning, the Chancellor may have saved you the trouble - but it's still worth looking at! Action Point! Have you considered how much IHT you might pay?