Trusts and estates

Helping you navigate trusts to protect your loved ones

When used in right, trusts can bring significant benefits by separating the legal and beneficial ownership of assets

Trusts are a commonly misunderstood tool in our tax planning toolbox.  The best way to think of a trust is as a bubble. Unless it is a very specific investment product which has been written into trust, once an asset, be it cash or a property, is inside the bubble, the person putting it there cannot benefit from it without forfeiting the inheritance tax benefits trusts are often set up to obtain.

Our Trusts & Estates team are not only expert tax advisers but many are also members of STEP (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) ensuring they are up to date with the latest legal, technical and regulatory developments.

Where they are used in the right way however, trusts can bring significant benefits. The main benefit is that they separate the legal and beneficial ownership of assets.

For example, if I wish to give you an asset, but control what you do with it, I could put the asset into trust and appoint myself as trustee and you as the beneficiary. As a trustee, I can decide what type of benefit you can have and when you can have it, whether it’s a right to have all of the income, or whether you don’t have a right to anything and any benefit you do receive is entirely at my discretion.

We may even set the trust up in an extremely flexible way which allows us to switch the way you benefit to suit your circumstances.

The right trust set up for you

  • Structure and planning – the most suitable trust structure for your circumstances, ensuring it is set up in the most tax efficient way

  • Implementation – working with your legal adviser to set up the trust

  • Management – including preparation of accounts and filing of tax returns

  • Administration – including distributions to beneficiaries and bookkeeping

  • Trustees – as part of our ongoing service to trustees, ensuring that they are kept up to date with changes in taxation law and other developments

Estates

Our trust experts also have considerable experience dealing with compliance for estates – the period between the day after someone’s death and the date the executor or personal representative finishes distributing the assets according to the will or the laws of intestacy is known as the period of administration. This requires a separate tax return from the period up to the date of death for taxation purposes. 

We can help manage the estate’s affairs, including preparing estate accounts and tax returns until the administration period is complete. 

Get in touch

Talk to a private client trust and estate practitioner.