Inheritance Tax Is Catching More People — Here's How to Fight Back

Summary

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Merryn Talks Money — "Inheritance Tax Is Catching More People — Here's How to Fight Back"

Date: June 3, 2026
Host: Merryn Somerset Webb (Bloomberg)
Guests: Rob May (Executive Director of Life & Inheritance Tax at SPF Private Clients), John Stepek (Bloomberg, Money Distilled newsletter).

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Episode Overview

This episode zeroes in on the growing impact of inheritance tax (IHT) in the UK and actionable strategies to reduce your liability. Merryn Somerset Webb leads a lively, practical conversation with trust and estate practitioner Rob May and Bloomberg's John Stepek, tackling listener concerns, new rules, and clever options for keeping more of your money in the family.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who Pays Inheritance Tax — Allowances, Thresholds, and Scope

• Nil Rate Band: Every individual has a £325,000 tax-free allowance; an additional £175,000 is possible if you own or have owned a qualifying residence passed to direct descendants, creating a potential £500,000 exemption.
• Couples: Married couples or civil partners can combine allowances to potentially shield up to £1 million.
• But: The residence allowance is limited; if you never owned a home, you only get the basic £325,000.
• Erosion for High-Value Estates: For estates above £2 million, the residence nil rate band tapers by £1 for every £2 above the threshold. E.g. an individual with £2.35m gets none of the additional allowance; married couple/civil partners lose it above £2.7m.

"If you're a single person who's maybe rented, that's all they get, £325,000. So maybe actually more people will be paying inheritance tax than we think."
— Merryn Somerset Webb [05:01]

Growing Revenue for HMRC
Rob May notes steady annual increases in inheritance tax receipts, as the £325,000 threshold hasn't budged in years, pulling more estates into IHT due to inflation and rising asset prices.

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2. The Simplest Solution: Spend It All!

Merryn's tongue-in-cheek (but financially accurate) advice:

"The absolutely best way to avoid inheritance tax, which is to spend all your money and to die broke... As we often say on the show, there are no pockets in a shroud."
— Merryn Somerset Webb [05:43]

Rob agrees:

"Absolutely, that's the best way." [05:58]

Spending is also, wryly, "good for the economy—not your kids, but great for the economy." [06:09]

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3. Alternative Strategies When You Can’t (or Won’t) Spend It All

a. Deathbed Marriage and the Spousal Exemption

If you're not married, tying the knot late in life grants the critical spouse/civil partner inheritance tax exemption.

"Absolutely. Get married, make sure you benefit from the spouse exemption."
— Rob May [07:12]

But: Ensure your will is up to date! Automatic transfers don’t always occur.

b. Life Insurance as an Inheritance Tax Solution

Rob May’s specialization is offering life insurance tailored to IHT mitigation. Two main types:

• Term Life Insurance:
  • For a defined period.
  • Especially useful when making large gifts (that would otherwise be taxed if you die within seven years, due to the 'seven-year rule').
  • Covers the "potential liability" during the risk window.

"You can set up a very specific seven year policy that will match that tax exposure during that period and therefore mean that if the worst does happen, death does arise and therefore it triggers a tax liability...the funds are available to then fund that tax liability for the beneficiaries."
— Rob May [08:27]

• Cost Examples:

  • At age 60: Term policy for a £500,000 gift costs about 0.6% of the value (total)
  • At age 70: About 1.8% if in good health
  • At age 80: About 6%

• Health status (e.g. smoking) impacts premiums. Small sums or younger age may avoid the need for a medical exam.

• Whole of Life Insurance:

  • No end date; pays out whenever you die (or on the second death for couples).
  • Premium Example: For a 70-year-old, £100,000 of cover might cost £3,000 per year, or £2,500 if married.

c. Insurance vs. Self-Funding (Savings/Investments)

Merryn points out you must consider whether paying insurance is better than saving/investing. Rob explains the key advantage:
Insurance payouts placed in trust are outside the estate and thus not subject to IHT, unlike personal savings/investments (which are taxed at 40% on death).

"You've got to save or invest and achieve a growth rate an awful lot higher to get to the same net position as your whole life policy pays out, if that makes sense."
— Rob May [17:16]

d. Trust Structure for Life Insurance Proceeds

Life insurance policies can be (and should be) written in trust to keep proceeds outside the estate for IHT.

"The proceeds of a life insurance policy are paid outside of the estate."
— Rob May [17:16]

e. Gifting and the Seven-Year Rule

Gifts made during your lifetime escape IHT if you survive seven years; otherwise, they run down the nil rate band and may attract a tapered IHT charge. Insurance can cover this risk window.

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4. How Rising IHT Revenue & Rule Changes Are Catching More People

a. Pensions, Business & Agricultural Relief Changes

Recent and coming reforms to pensions, business relief, and agricultural relief mean more people—especially business and farm owners—fall within the IHT net who never had to think about it before.

"Certainly in terms of business relief, agricultural relief changes and pension changes coming next year, these are impacting people that have never probably had to think about inheritance tax."
— Rob May [19:01]

b. Non-Dom Rule Reforms

From April 2025, non-doms can't shield assets offshore as easily; the period of UK residency required to become IHT-liable has dropped from 15 to 10 years, but time spent abroad now can remove assets from UK IHT after 10 years.

"If they've lived outside the UK for more than 10 tax years in the last 20, then you know, they're outside of the tax net from an inheritance tax perspective on their non UK asset base."
— Rob May [24:21]

This opens up new (albeit unpredictable) planning options for expats and globetrotters, though timing one’s death is, as Merryn notes, the “hard part.”

c. The UK may see a surge in expat pensioners as a result, with both John and Merryn joking about possible destinations (Portugal, Greece, Costa Rica).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Humour on Avoidance Tactics:

  "Spend all your money. Two, marry on your deathbed. Three, get insurance. And four, move to Costa Rica."
  — Merryn Somerset Webb [26:25]

• On Will Preparation:

  "Some people don't have their wills up to date. Right. So absolutely no matter what you do around planning, absolutely. Make sure that you've got your will in place."
  — Rob May [07:34]

• On Reluctance to Medical Exams:

  "Am I going to have to have a medical for that, Rob? I don't want a medical."
  — Merryn Somerset Webb [11:27]

• Personal Destinations to Avoid Inheritance Tax:

  "Costa Rica it is."
  — Merryn Somerset Webb [26:25]

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Important Timestamps

• Intro and Guest Setup: 01:48 – 02:47
• Nil Rate Bands & Allowances Explained: 03:06 – 04:36
• Gifting & Seven-Year Rule: 04:36 – 05:01
• Why More People Are Getting Caught by IHT: 05:10 – 05:43
• "Die broke" Advice: 05:43 – 06:09
• Spousal Exemption & Will Advice: 07:12 – 08:14
• Insurance Strategies Begin: 08:27 – 10:37
• Costs for Term Insurance: 10:53 – 12:36
• Costs & Considerations for Whole of Life Insurance: 15:27 – 16:44
• Difference between Saving and Insurance Strategies: 16:44 – 18:14
• Recent Rule Changes Catching More People: 19:01 – 21:13
• Non-Dom, Residency, and Planning Opportunities: 21:13 – 25:13
• Host & Guest Discuss Possible Expat Destinations: 25:38 – 26:25
• Key Takeaways Recap: 26:25 – 26:42

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Episode Takeaways: The IHT "Playbook"

1. Spend all your money before you die.
2. If not, consider a (late) marriage for spousal IHT exemption.
3. Explore life insurance—in particular, term and whole-of-life policies set up in trust—as a mitigation tool.
4. For some, relocating abroad and severing UK residency for long enough can eliminate IHT exposure on non-UK assets.
5. Crucially: Always have your will in order, and seek professional advice tailored to your circumstances and the ever-shifting tax rules.

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For more practical investment and tax strategies, follow Merryn Somerset Webb and John Stepek on social media, or look out for future episodes.

Transcript

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[Maren Sumset Webb]

Welcome to Marin Talks yous Money, the personal finance edition of marantalks Money. In these bonus podcasts we talk about the best strategies for making the most of your money. I'm Maren Sumset Webb and I'm Join

[John Stevik]

Stevik, Senior Reporter at Bloomberg and author of the Money Distilled newsletter.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

We are talking inheritance tax again now. Whenever we do a mailbag episode, questions about inheritance tax absolutely flood in. It is absolutely top of a lot of our listeners minds and of course it's endlessly covered in the media as well. So today we are looking at it again and we are going to focus on the thing that I know you really care about, which is how to pay less of it. So we've got on a guest to help us out with the technical bit. So joining us today is Rob May. Rob is a trust and estate practitioner who offers expert IHD planning advice to high net worth clients. He is the Executive Director of Life and Inheritance Tax at SPF Private Clients. Rob, thank you, thank you for joining us today.

[Rob May]

You're very, very welcome Marianne. It's it's great to be here today.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

All right, now let's start off by talking about, well, the inheritance tax, of course, but not that many people actually end up paying it. Right. I mean, there's a system of allowances that means that most people are not going to pay it.

[Rob May]

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, every individual, doesn't matter where you are, has an ill rate band allowance of 325,000. Dependent on how much wealth you have as well, you might benefit from the additional residence Norwegian band of up to 175k. So potentially each individual could have up to half a million allowance. And of course, if you're married or civil partners, then that potentially means that between you both you've got up to a million inheritance tax free.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Yeah, but then, so that might work for you. And then of course, if you don't have a family home that you can set against it or haven't had one that you downsized from recently, you may not get that allowance. So that may, if you always rent it, for example, if you sold a long time ago, you may not get that full amount. You'll just get the through 25.

[Rob May]

Absolutely.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

And then of course there's this, this thing that I don't think quite enough people really understand, which is that if your estate is worth over 2 million, that allowance starts to disappear. Right, how does that work?

[Rob May]

Yeah, absolutely. So it's kind of, it tapers down one pound for every two pound over the, over the two million, effectively. So if you're a state, if you're an individual and your estate is valued at 2.35 million, you won't have any of that additional residence nor a band allowance. And if you're a married couple or civil partners and your estate's over 2.7 million, then you again won't have any of that additional allowance. So that's when it goes straight back down to the 325.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Okay. But the 325 never gets taken away. Everyone gets the 325 regardless.

[Rob May]

Everyone gets a 325 regardless, just to be complete. You know, sometimes people make gifts during their lifetime and that might eat into that allowance, but it should then in theory reset every seven years if those

[Maren Sumset Webb]

gifts break the seven year.

[Rob May]

Exactly.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

So if you, if you gave a pile of money away five years ago, three years ago, two years ago, whatever it is.

[Rob May]

Exactly, yeah. So as long as you're seven years after making gifts, if it's eaten into that 325 allowance, it should be available then.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Okay, so if we're talking about A single person who's maybe rented, that's all they get, three to five. So maybe actually more people will be paying inheritance tax than we think.

[Rob May]

Absolutely. I mean, if we look at the last few years in particular, or perhaps consistently over many years, inheritance tax receipts by HMRC have just kept going up and up. And that's simply because that near weight band or 325 allowance just hasn't changed, hasn't been adjusted for inflation. Means that lots more people are getting caught by it. And as I'm sure we'll come on to a little bit later, because of other changes that have happened in more recent times around inheritance tax, even more people will be captured in the not too distant future, if not already.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Okay, so let's start with the absolutely best way to avoid inheritance tax, which is to spend all your money and to die broke. And as we often say on the show, there are no pockets in a shroud. So just get out there and spend that money. That's the best way out, right?

[Rob May]

Absolutely. Look, the simplest form is do as much as you can to spend it all or at least get under those allowances so that you don't have any inheritance tax to pay. Absolutely, that's the best way.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Okay, so we're encouraging that. That's also, by the way, everybody, very good for the economy, not good for your kids, but great for the economy. So we really encourage that. Get rid of those savings, get rid of everything, sell that house. I know it's not the best time, by the way, but get out and spend. Go on holiday maybe. Oh, no, you can't jet fuel. Go on a holiday in the uk Right. Now, assuming that you can't do that or that you're too nervous to do that, you can't quite bring yourself to get rid of all your money. Maybe you have too money and anyway, who knows when they're going to die, et cetera. So one way or another, you're going to die with an estate worth over 500,000, over a million, whatever it is, depending on where it kicks in. What's the next best way to avoid inheritance tax?

[Rob May]

I'm going to be a little bit biased here because of course I focus on insurance solutions as a solution to inheritance tax planning for clients. So I wouldn't necessarily say best because of course it all depends on individual circumstances. But I think certainly the simplest form then dealing with that inheritance tax exposure is to. Is to insure against it. So interesting.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

I thought you were going to say deathbed marriage.

[Rob May]

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, you're quite right. I mean, if you're not married. Absolutely. Get married, make sure you benefit from the spouse exemption. But assuming you're already married, this bit

[Maren Sumset Webb]

of the show is aimed squarely at my mother, by the way. You're listening, Mum. She's always asking me how to avoid inheritance tax and I'm always saying, you know, remarried my dad, how bad can it be?

[Rob May]

Yeah, absolutely. Definitely getting married or actually, you know, you raise an important point, Marion. Some people don't have their wills up to date. Right. So absolutely no matter what you do around planning. Absolutely. Make sure that you've got your will in place, particularly if you're in a married couple or civil partnership, because it's not automatic that everything goes to your spouse or civil partner. So making sure that you have those wills set up on that basis means that you can guarantee that you've got that spouse exemption. So everything from an inheritance tax perspective is hopefully deferred until second death of both people.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Okay, excellent. So first, spend it all. Second deathbed marriage. And third, the one that you're biased towards, which is insurance. Insurance. Tell us how that works.

[Rob May]

Yeah, for sure. So there's broadly two forms of life insurance that can be used for inheritance tax planning. So you've got a term life insurance policy. So a bit like the name suggests, it lasts for a specified period. You can use it in various different ways in various different circumstances to then mitigate that inheritance tax risk, as I said, for a specific period. So probably the most common form that it's used for, a common planning solution it's used for is when people do gift assets during their lifetime. So to the extent that someone's gifted assets and it's above any of their allowances and reliefs and things, then they've got a seven year exposure for an inheritance tax liability to arise if they die within that period. So you can set up a very specific seven year policy that will match that tax exposure during that period and therefore mean that if the worst does happen, death does arise and therefore it triggers a tax liability. Ultimately the funds are available to then fund that tax liability for the beneficiaries of the gift. So that's a common way. I mean, term insurance also utilized more as a deferral mechanism. So maybe you've got clients that are looking at potentially a time horizon within which maybe they will gift to children, but their children are too young for them to do so at this stage. And so they're perhaps wanting to see, you know, how life pans out a little bit before they Feel comfortable gifting sizable assets to children. So you can maybe look at 10, 15, 20 years, whatever the term needs to be, but you can arrange it all the way up to age 90 expiry. So protecting any kind of period in between that to mitigate that tax exposure. The other solution is whole of life. So again, a bit like the name suggests, it doesn't have an end date, it lasts forever. So, you know, if you're an individual, it just lasts until you die. If you're a married couple or in civil partnership, it can last until the second if you die. So ultimately to time the payout when the death arises and when tax liabilities ultimately arise.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Okay, so that sounds expensive. Let's just look at these different types. So let's say I'm buying the seven year one. Let's say for the sake of our being, I've given one of my ungrateful children half a million quid and I'm worried that I won't make it through the next seven years and I want to insure against that. What's that going to cost me?

[Rob May]

So say age 60 and I sort of work in percentages. So if you're age 60, the total cost that you might pay towards that life insurance policy is probably no more than 0.6% of the value of the gift that you have made. So if you compare that to the fact that in the first three years of that period of seven years, you've got a potentially 40% tax exposure.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rob May]

You're locking in a total effective tax cost of 0.6% versus a potential tax risk of 40% if I'm 60.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

But am I going to have to have a medical for that? Rob? I don't want a medical.

[Rob May]

If you don't want a medical, it depends on the, depends on the sums that you need ultimately. Right. So there are circumstances where if you're looking at smaller sums dependent on age, you won't need a medical exam full stop. It's a common thing that comes up in the conversations I have with clients though. You know, obviously that, that, that kind of concern around needing to go through a medical exam. What I find is that once you've spoken to someone a little bit about how, what's involved with it, actually they get a little bit more comfortable with it. Of course, you know, there could be circumstances though, where people are simply just not in very good health and therefore insurance isn't available to them. So that's really key to stress as well because it works very well, but it's not available to everyone. Right.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Okay. So 0.6% if I'm 60. How much more if I'm 70?

[Rob May]

If you're 70, you're probably looking at about 1.8% assuming you're in good health. Assuming you're still in good health. Yeah, absolutely. And if you're up to age 80, you're probably looking at about 6% roughly.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Okay, so that's, it's not bad, is it? Relative to paying the tax.

[Rob May]

Yeah. Relative to the tax liability. Absolutely. And I think, you know, to stress on the point around health as well. Yes. Not everyone is going to get that rate. Okay. You know, particularly if you're a smoker and things as well, it impacts the premium substantially. But I think the key kind of starting point that I always have with clients is that if that's the starting place as the best case scenario, even for clients that aren't in perfect health, maybe there are some medical concerns that lead to them having a higher premium than the standard premium, then it's still potentially a very cost effective way of mitigating that tax exposure over the seven year period.

[Monks Investment Trust Representative]

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[Maren Sumset Webb]

Right, let's look at prices then for the longer term stuff. If I'm 75.

[Rob May]

Yeah.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

And I want whole of life insurance for my estate, again, that was that come as a percentage, an annual percentage or an upfront percentage? Roughly.

[Rob May]

Yeah. I can give you a rough steer. I mean what I'll do is, I'll give you, I'll give you it based on an age of 70 because that's what I've got to hand in my brain. So if you're, if you're a single 70 year old and you say wanted a million pounds of whole of life insurance, you'd be looking.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

A million pounds is the value of my estate as opposed to the expected value of the tax.

[Rob May]

A million is the value of the tax. So you're, when you're insuring with the life insurance solution, you're always insuring the tax liability as opposed to the value of your estate. And you can pretty much look at pro rata figures for lower sums. So if we said you only wanted 100,000 of whole of life insurance, you're probably looking at about something like 3,000 pounds a year for a whole of life insurance policy at age 70 for an individual. Okay. If you were married and you were both age 70, you'd be looking at about maybe 2 to 2,500 pounds a year.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

So you have to take some careful thinking about how long you think you might live and whether you're better off doing that or whether you're better off putting the same amount of money into a savings account and telling your children it was designated for iht. There is, there's some thinking to do around it.

[Rob May]

Absolutely. But you also make a really interesting observation there. So when we're, when we're having conversations with clients around whole of life insurance, you know, naturally that, that thought process goes into. Well, okay, well if I didn't pay these insurance premiums and instead I invested the money or put it into a savings product.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rob May]

What's it, what's the difference in the outcome? Okay. But there's a, there's a big thing that people sometimes overlook when they're making that comparison, which is that if you're investing your money or if you're putting it into a savings product, ultimately whatever that amount grows to over your lifetime is itself going to be subject to inheritance tax. Right. So you're going to have 40% of that knocked off straight away on death. Whereas with life insurance, key thing that we've not yet covered but it's really important the policies are held in trust or structured into a trust once that policy is in place, which very straightforward to do. All insurance companies provide their own standard documents or your lawyer can help with that. But the proceeds of a life insurance policy are paid outside of the estate. So when you're comparing one versus the other, actually you've got to save or invest and achieve a growth rate an awful lot higher to get to the same net position as your whole life policy pays out, if that makes sense.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

It does. And so the trust that you put the insurance money into is not an individual trust, was not subject to the 10 year rule.

[Rob May]

We could get very into the weeds on this. But in theory there should be no 10 yearly charges on life insurance trusts. If you're looking at really big numbers and big premiums, you've got to do some careful planning and structuring around that, but it's easy to mitigate.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

That's a really interesting point, John.

[John Stevik]

Yes. Did you have a question, bigger picture level, because I know that you're sort of just specializing in insurance, but is this making are these changes that are coming, coming up to pensions basically good for your business? That's what it boils down to.

[Rob May]

It does, yeah. You've hit the nail on the head, John. I mean look, not, not not only the pension changes, you know, some people that are listening perhaps might have been or at least have seen in the news all of the changes impacting farmers sadly and business owners, which kicked in from this 6th April just gone prior to that, you know, for those that, that were interested they might have, you know, seen all the around non doms leaving the UK for example. So that was the previous April where there were some big changes to inheritance tax. So yes, all of these changes do help certainly our business from a life insurance perspective, unfortunately. Certainly in terms of business relief, agricultural relief changes and pension changes coming next year, these are impacting people that have never probably had to think about inheritance tax. So I don't forget the fact that it's, you know, it's really difficult for people to suddenly now get their heads around having to deal with this potential tax issue on the horizon. But hopefully not just with Life insurance. But there are planning, you know, there are planning opportunities out there still with good advice, people can still spend it or do other things to sort of mitigate that tax exposure. But yeah, I think life insurance has certainly become significantly demand over the last couple of years compared to the previous, what we're talking 12 or 13 years in my career before that where it was always the thing that I focused on, it was always in demand, but just not at all in as much demand as it is today.

[John Stevik]

When they changed the rules in the non doms and they changed it to 10 years so that you know, the inheritance tax, they have to pay inheritance tax after 10 years but they kind of also made it that if you leave the UK and you're out of the UK for 10 years, you should no longer fall into inheritance tax. Is that correct? Because in the old days there was just no clarity on that. It didn't matter when you moved away from the uk you were still inheritance tax liable.

[Rob May]

Yeah, so, so it was slightly, I mean the old rules were slightly less, less clear as you say, because there was an, there was the concept of domicile that played, played a role in it. But, but, but actually the, the old rules did still have a cutoff point. So the old rules effectively were if you had spent 15 tax years as a UK resident tax resident, you would be caught on a worldwide basis to inheritance tax. What was the real fundamental shift that maybe some people wouldn't have picked up is the fact that what people could do pre 6th April 2025 is settle all of their assets offshore into an offshore trust and that would then be ring fenced from an inheritance tax perspective in the uk. So that's the fundamental shift beyond just a residency point. That's the fundamental shift that happened in April 2020. People can't do that planning now that they could do before and then add to, add to the fact that they've lost five years effectively of tax residents. So once they've been here for 10 now they've got that worldwide exposure. So what we're finding a lot of clients doing in that respect is, you know, well, as you have seen, you know, people have already left the UK and have gone to places like Italy, places like Dubai and the like, you know, places that are low tax jurisdictions or offering, offering alternative favorable tax tax regimes to people or people are of course not yet at that 10 year point and perhaps will just stay here for up to 10 years before they, before they leave. You know, and perhaps within that time frame they've they've, they've scratched their itch as far as the UK is concerned or maybe they've dealt with what they needed to do with whilst being here in terms of career, business, etc. And again, not to, not to labor the point too much today because it's going to come up as a common theme. Of course, you know, we also do get quite a lot of clients interested in insurance to, to then protect that tax exposure because, you know, instead, instead of leaving the uk, what some people have done is say, well, you know, I'm going to be in the UK for another five, 10, 15 years, whatever it might be, I will definitely leave, but I just, I'm not ready to leave yet. Maybe I've got my children in school or, you know, maybe my business is still growing and things. So that's where the term insurance solution that I talked about earlier works quite well for them because it just defers that position them, you know, it's not a silver bullet by any stretch because you know, some clients have got quite substantial levels of wealth and the insurance solution won't necessarily keep up with that because more often than not we set in place a set life insurance sum and there. But their tax exposure might keep increasing over time. So, you know, we have to revisit it in, you know, in on a periodic basis. But it at least gives them some peace of mind to, to maybe remain in the UK without feeling like they've got this huge, huge tax cloud from an inheritance tax hanging over them.

[John Stevik]

Because I was just wondering on the flip side, is there anything here that's changed the calculus for, if you like, like normal UK residents to make sure that they try and retire abroad 10 years before they die?

[Rob May]

I mean that's one of the benefits really of the regime that perhaps didn't really get the same level of press attention than the negatives. Right. But you know, the expat community now has an opportunity to plan for inheritance tax in a way that they never did previously. So you know, as you say, if they've lived outside the UK for more than 10 tax years in the last 20, then you know, they're outside of the tax net from an inheritance tax perspective on their non UK asset base. So as long as they've taken everything outside the uk, so yeah, absolutely, but it does obviously what you can't do, unfortunately, otherwise we'd all be able to plan perfectly is understand or time when your death is going to rise, sadly. So that's the one thing that still perhaps is where the insurance solution Maybe has a role to play.

[John Stevik]

Yeah, absolutely. I just think it's interesting because now, I guess now that 10 years is quite close to the seven years for the gift allowance. So if you were thinking of retiring abroad, then there's an element. Oh, well, we may as well just do it as quick as we can so that we can get the IHT clock running on that. But, yeah, no, so that was just. It was just something I was curious about. So I wonder if we're just gonna get lots of more expat pensioners as a result of this.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Yeah. Where are you gonna move to, John, to avoid your iht?

[John Stevik]

I mean, I'm very kind of fond of Port School, historically. I'm getting quite fond of Greece. You know, I'm just, you know, I'm kind of going to need to think about my options here. Or maybe go long haul.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Yeah, yeah. Rob, where are you going? Where would you recommend?

[Rob May]

So I've got international connections, I guess, in terms of my work in Colombia. Some of that side of the family live in Costa Rica. So maybe I'll end up in Costa Rica one day. That was definitely, definitely on the cards at one point. We'll see how it goes and things.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

How's your Spanish, Rob?

[Rob May]

Un poquito.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Always off. Costa Rica it is. So there you go, everybody. One, spend all your money. Two, marry on your deathbed. Three, get insurance. And four, move to Costa Rica. Rob, thank you very much for joining us today.

[Rob May]

That's all right. No pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

Thanks for listening to this week's Maren Talks yous Money. If you like our show, rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, be sure to follow me and John on X or Twitter aunsw and johnstepek. Rob you on Twitter.

[Rob May]

I'm not, no, sadly. Other social media, LinkedIn's the one for me.

[Maren Sumset Webb]

All right, find Rob on LinkedIn. This episode was produced by Sama Saadi Moses Andam and Jennifer Seeley. Questions and comments on this show and all our shows are always welcome. Our show email is merrymoneyloomburg.net Special thanks to Rob May.

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