Inheritance Tax Planning: A Pragmatic Approach for Your Family’s Future
Take Full Control of Your Estate with Lanop’s Expert Support
- No one wants their loved ones burdened with unexpected taxes. Our inheritance tax planning service for UK citizens gives the clarity, flexibility, and control you need to manage your estate with confidence and protect your legacy.
Plan
with Confidence
- Thinking ahead gives you more freedom. We’ll help you explore practical IHT planning options like gifting, asset structuring, and trusts so you can reduce tax exposure and stay in control of your estate.
Clear Advice,
No Confusion
- You don’t need to be a tax expert to make the right decisions. Our team simplifies every step of your inheritance planning, giving you guidance that’s easy to understand and tailored to your situation.
Adapt Your
Strategy Over Time
- Life often takes a turn, and your plan should too. Whether you’ve acquired new assets or your family structure has shifted, we update your inheritance tax plan to make sure it still meets your long-term goals.
Comprehensive Services to Protect Your Wealth and Legacy
At Lanop, we offer a full suite of expert-led services that go beyond standard advice. From inheritance tax planning to wealth protection strategies, we help you secure your estate with clarity, structure, and long-term confidence.
Our tailored inheritance tax planning solutions use exemptions, strategic gifting, and trusts and inheritance tax planning to legally reduce your estate’s tax burden, allowing more of your wealth to pass to the people who matter most.
We ensure your will is not only legally sound but also fully aligned with your inheritance tax plan, helping you avoid family disputes, delays in distribution, and unintended tax liabilities in the future.
Our advisors help you use iht planning strategies to protect qualifying family businesses through business relief, while building a clear succession plan to ensure smooth ownership transition and continuity for the next generation.
Through carefully selected inheritance tax planning trusts, we help you preserve wealth, manage risk, and transfer assets in a tax-efficient way, all while keeping full control and flexibility over your estate structure.
We guide you through iht planning options like gifting assets within allowable thresholds, using the 7-year rule effectively, and documenting transfers to reduce your estate’s exposure to unnecessary inheritance tax.
We help you set up life insurance policies held in trust so that your beneficiaries can cover inheritance tax planning liabilities without the payout increasing the taxable value of your estate.
Who We Help
Our services are tailored for:
- Homeowners with property worth over £325,000
- Families with multi-generational wealth
- Business owners looking to pass on their company
- Retirees planning their estate
- High-net-worth individuals with diverse assets
- Anyone looking to protect their loved ones from surprise IHT bills
Understand Inheritance Tax in the UK
If you live in the UK and own property or have savings, inheritance tax planning should be on your radar. When someone passes away, their estate may be taxed, and if you're not prepared, that tax bill can be a lot bigger than you expect.
Right now, there’s a £325,000 tax-free threshold, and if you’re passing your main home to direct descendants, you could claim an extra £175,000. That’s up to £500,000 tax-free per person, or £1 million for couples.
Challenges When Trying to Reduce IHT Without Support
- Gifting without understanding the tax implications
- Misusing or underusing trust structures
- Overreliance on property, with no diversification plan
- No idea how political changes (Labour plans, etc.) might affect tax law
- Missing out on business or agricultural relief
- Poor will structure leads to probate delays and higher tax.
- Not acting early enough to make full use of tax exemptions
Why Early Inheritance Tax Planning is the Smartest Move for Your Legacy
The truth is simple, the sooner you begin inheritance tax planning, the more choices you have, and the fewer headaches your family will face later.
Early action gives you more than peace of mind. It opens up valuable IHT planning options, like lifetime gifting. By making gifts and surviving seven years, those assets can fall outside your taxable estate entirely. More time also means more strategy. You can set up inheritance tax planning trusts without the last-minute pressure that often leads to mistakes.
If you run a business, planning ahead could mean securing Business Relief, allowing your company to pass to your children or successors tax-free. And if you own property, early inheritance tax planning for properties lets you structure ownership and your will carefully, minimising inheritance tax without triggering Capital Gains Tax or unexpected consequences.
How It Works
- Income & platform review, UK and global
- Free consultation to understand your goals
- Accounting setup, cloud-based, fully digital
- Ongoing support, tax planning, filings, WhatsApp access
- International advisory, for relocation, expansion, and UAE structuring
Building a Financial Foundation for Growth
When your creative work starts to gain real traction, the financial side quickly becomes more complex. You might find yourself selling more pieces, hosting workshops, licensing your designs, all exciting, but also demanding when it comes to money management. Many artists we meet reach a point where they realise they’re running a small business without even meaning to. That’s where we step in, not just to keep you compliant, but to help you grow with confidence.
That may mean setting up a limited company, registering for VAT, building a pension through your creative income, or even hiring support staff for your studio. We help you understand when to level up and how to do it without losing the soul of your work.
One artist we worked with went from weekend shows to running a commercial studio full-time, we helped them build a financial foundation for that shift with clear budgets, realistic targets, and long-term planning.
In today’s landscape, HMRC is paying closer attention to artists and creatives. Staying ahead means more than staying compliant, it means being ready to grow without stress. With Lanop, your art is supported by structure. That’s how passion becomes a profession, and how creativity becomes a career.
Award Winning Accountancy Firm in the UK
Our Identity
Integrity, honesty, and dedication are the core values at Lanop Business & Tax Advisors. Since launching our first Putney office in 2010, we’ve grown into a fully digital, UK‑based accounting and tax advisory firm that blends expert compliance with forward‑looking guidance and business strategy.
Our team of specialized chartered tax advisors and accountants delivers a full spectrum of services including tax planning, bookkeeping, VAT, payroll, and virtual finance director support all designed to help you manage your business more efficiently and confidently.
We believe accounting is more than numbers it’s about empowering your journey through modern finance. That means applying strategic insight, breaking down complex financial processes, and acting as your trusted partner not just submitting filings.
Put simply, Lanop Business & Tax Advisors is more than an accounting firm we are your strategic ally, dedicated to guiding your financial success with integrity, precision,
FAQ
Accountants for inheritance tax planning
Is inheritance tax planning legal?
Yes, it is completely legal and absolutely essential for many families. At Lanop, we use only HMRC-approved methods such as exemptions, reliefs, and tools like trusts and wills. There is nothing aggressive or risky involved. Inheritance tax planning is simply about making smart, lawful choices to protect what you have built.
What is the 7-year rule?
If you give someone a financial gift and live for at least seven more years, that gift is usually exempt from inheritance tax. If you pass away within that period, tax may apply depending on how many years have passed. Used properly, the 7-year rule is one of the most valuable IHT planning strategies.
Are Labour inheritance tax plans a concern?
While nothing has been officially confirmed, the possibility of new Labour inheritance tax plans has raised concerns. That is why we design every inheritance plan to be adaptable. If policies shift, your estate strategy should not fall apart. We keep our clients informed and ready for any legislative changes.
Can I protect my family home from IHT?
Yes, and in many cases quite effectively. With professional inheritance tax planning advice, you can take advantage of the residence nil-rate band and other reliefs. Whether through gifting, structuring ownership, or planning your will, there are legitimate ways to reduce or even remove IHT on your main home.
Is it too late to start planning if I’m over 65?
Not at all. We regularly work with clients in their sixties, seventies, and beyond. While starting earlier opens up more IHT planning options, there is still a lot we can do later in life. From inheritance tax planning trusts to tailored advice on gifting and wills, it is never too late to protect your estate.
