In 2021, the UK taxman collected GBP5.7 billion from inheritance tax (IHT). You shouldn’t think that, because you are an expat, this doesn’t concern you.
In recent research from Barclays Wealth, three in five (60 per cent) UK adults aged between 45 and 54 said they did not know if their investments would be subject to inheritance tax when they were passed on to family. Additionally, the survey found that a quarter (26 per cent) of respondents did not know if their property’s value would be considered separately to the rest of their financial assets for inheritance tax purposes.
The rules for transferring assets to a UK domiciled spouse are fairly straightforward. However, things are trickier when one spouse is non-domiciled. In general, lifetime and on-death transfers of assets between spouses/civil partners who are both UK domiciled are exempt from UK inheritance tax (IHT) without limit. However, when one spouse is not UK domiciled, the spousal exemption is limited to £325,000.
