Oakmere Wealth Management Advisors: Protecting You and Your Estate

Gone are the days when Inheritance Tax (IHT) was the sole concern of the wealthy. But while many people are aware of the need for IHT planning, few still do anything about their potential liability. So few, in fact, that HM Revenue & Customs collected over £3.5bn in IHT revenues in 2014/15 alone *.

IHT is just one of the many areas to consider when protecting your family and home – others include Capital Gains Tax, illness and loss of income. Assessing the right protection for your specific needs is essential to any wealth management solution.

About

When managing your wealth it is important to understand that every individual or business needs a different approach. Ambitions, assets and attitude to risk are different for everyone and, of course, this will change over time.

We have offices on the outskirts of Northwich, Cheshire and central Manchester and we work closely with every client – building relationships based on trust and an in-depth understanding of your finances. This ensures that we are able to provide the advice that is needed, when it’s needed.

Our service is grounded in the highest professional standards.

We recognise that each of our clients is unique and as such deserves a bespoke service, tailored to their own financial needs and future aspirations.

Working With You

Putting our clients firmly at the heart of everything we do enables us to run a genuinely client-focused business. In our experience, no two clients are the same and we therefore ensure that we understand your personal or business objectives and deliver solutions that are right for you.

We do not provide off the shelf solutions, but we offer the benefit of a single relationship for all of your financial planning needs. We strive to offer the very best service to develop a long term relationship with you.

Why St. James’s Place

St. James’s Place is one of the UK’s leading wealth management organisations, managing client funds of £75.3 billion. The company was founded in 1991 by Mike Wilson CBE, Sir Mark Weinberg and Lord Rothschild and today through its Partnership provides reliable and expert advice in all aspects of wealth management.

As a client, you will receive a personalised face-to-face advisory service from our business, whilst having access to a distinctive investment management approach and the backing and re-assurance of investing with an award winning FTSE 100 company.

Inheritance Tax

Would you like HM Revenue & Customs to be the biggest single beneficiary of your estate when you die?

Sadly, without the right advice and careful financial planning, that is what could happen. Inheritance Tax (IHT) has an increasingly broad reach. The impact on a relatively modest estate can be quite dramatic, and on a large estate it could be ruinous.

The first £325,000 of an individual’s estate is taxed at 0% and is therefore not liable to IHT. For married couples and registered civil partners it is currently £650,000, where the full allowance has been passed to the surviving spouse. Anything in excess of this amount is taxed at 40%.

Intergenerational wealth management

If your children or parents need financial assistance, you may want to transfer some of your wealth during your lifetime, rather than wait for your Will to take effect.

More than ever, as we all live longer, there is a need to be able to share collective wealth with the other generations of our family while we’re still around. This is the essence of ‘intergenerational wealth management’.

You may want to help parents with expensive long-term care costs, or to support a child with a deposit for their first home. Perhaps you have decided to pay the education fees for a grandchild. But at the same time you will be trying to ensure your family wealth lasts through your own, possibly extended, retirement.

St. James’s Place can give you expert advice on all the issues associated with intergenerational wealth management.

Gifts

Making a gift of certain amounts of money or assets can be a valuable exemption from Inheritance Tax.

There are various additional ways to use your gift allowance, such as an annual exemption for gifting to an individual up to £3,000 per tax year. Using income to fund the contributions to a life policy held in trust, parents can each give up to £5,000 to each party of a marriage/civil partnership. Additionally, a lifetime gift of capital designed to maintain a dependent is exempt under certain circumstances.

Gifts to charities, political parties or for the public benefit, such as universities, national museums, and the National Trust are also exempt.

Please contact us to discuss your options further, as we are able to advise you on the best options available to suit your own personal circumstances.