On Brian's death, his estate was valued at £820,000. He bequeathed £40,000 to a registered charity and split the balance equally between his registered civil partner and his brother. Assuming he made no lifetime transfers, what will the Inheritance Tax liability be?
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A. B. C. D.B
In the United Kingdom, when a person dies, their estate is subject to Inheritance Tax (IHT). The IHT is a tax on the value of the estate above a certain threshold, which is currently set at £325,000 (as of the knowledge cutoff in September 2021).
In this case, Brian's estate was valued at £820,000. The first step to calculate the IHT liability is to deduct any allowable expenses or exemptions. Brian's bequest to a registered charity of £40,000 is an allowable exemption for IHT purposes. Therefore, the value of Brian's estate for IHT purposes is £780,000 (£820,000 - £40,000).
Next, we need to calculate the IHT liability on the remaining estate value of £780,000. The IHT rate on the estate depends on whether any of the estate is left to a spouse or civil partner, and the amount of the estate above the threshold. In this case, Brian left half of the estate to his civil partner and half to his brother, so we need to calculate the IHT liability for each of these shares separately.
For the share left to Brian's civil partner:
For the share left to Brian's brother:
Finally, we add the IHT liabilities for each share to get the total IHT liability:
Therefore, the correct answer is B. £26,000.