Don't Pay Inheritance Tax Unless You Choose To
Chartered Inheritance Tax Adviser Specialising in Advice and Implementation
“I was driven to establish my own boutique tax advisory practice, following ten years of employment in several accountancy firms, to develop an estate planning ‘system’ that is clear, sequential and emphasises implementation.”
- Tom Schan, Inheritance Tax Adviser
The IHT-free Estate API System
Most solicitors specifically exclude tax advice from the scope of their engagement unless they have a dedicated tax department. While there are areas of legal advice that involve tax such as wills and trusts, solicitors typically do not provide advice on significant inheritance tax (IHT) mitigation strategies.
As a result, clients may not be informed of the benefits and associated costs of incorporating their property portfolio, restructuring their company, or making certain lifetime gifts.
I developed the IHT-free Estate API System to provide you with a transparent, three-step process to mitigate any unrealised inheritance tax liability and preserve your wealth for your family’s benefit.
The three steps are Ascertain, Plan and Implement.
Each step is undertaken sequentially, and there is no obligation to move from one step to the next.
I work with a select number of clients at any given time and always maintain a manageable workload. This allows me to provide an unrivalled level of service that is simply not available from traditional professional firms. I do not take on additional work if it would negatively impact the service levels for existing clients.
I am currently accepting only one new IHT-free Estate API System client per month.
Ascertain
Do you know your current UK inheritance tax exposure if you were to die today?
Will your beneficiaries suffer a preventable inheritance tax liability?
Engage my services to analyse your estate and provide you with a comprehensive Statement of Net Worth with Inheritance Tax Summary.
£795 individual / £995 married couple
Plan
Don’t pay UK inheritance tax unless you choose to! Now that your unrealised IHT liability has been ascertained, what are we going to do about it?
Don’t let a failure to plan result in leaving a less valuable estate than you intended or being remembered for bequeathing a contentious probate. Such failures can lead to confusion, deep emotional wounds, and fractured family relationships.
Engage my services to strategize and plan for an IHT-free estate. Comprehensive advice provided sufficiently early can enable you to make fully informed decisions and significantly impact the lives of your beneficiaries.
There is no charge for the Plan service if no IHT savings are possible.
£0.5% of potential IHT saving
Implement
For when estate planning advice isn’t enough: Great ideas are valueless without implementation.
Implementation can be complicated, and not all tax issues are easy to simplify. It is at this stage that miscommunication or misunderstanding can render a plan’s objectives invalid.
The Implementation step provides you with the opportunity to clearly communicate or document your rationale and intentions to those you will leave behind, helping to mitigate the risk of confusion that could cause or deepen rifts between beneficiaries.
Engage me to project-manage the implementation of the approved plan. I will collaborate with your advisers or recommended members from my trusted professional network to ensure that all legal documents are drafted and executed in accordance with the plan, and that ongoing compliance support is in place.
Charged on a time-spent basis
About Tom Schan
I’m a self-employed, private-client chartered tax adviser and inheritance tax specialist based in London, and a member of both the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP).
My mission, as outlined in My Story, is to ensure my clients are tax-compliant, pay no more tax than required by law, and are able to preserve family wealth.
I achieve this by:
✔️ Agreeing on fees prior to engagement, so you have peace of mind
✔️ Not charging for calls or meetings, so you feel supported
✔️ Maintaining a small client portfolio, so you know I’m accessible
It’s important that you feel comfortable engaging with me, keeping me informed, and trusting that I am contributing to your success. When our relationship is actively fostered, the risk of errors or failure to plan effectively is minimized.
As an inheritance tax adviser, I specialise in inheritance, income, capital gains, and stamp duty land taxes. Based in London but working with clients across the UK, I use this expertise to support you at any stage of your journey—helping you stay tax-compliant and ensuring you only ever pay what’s legally required.
Other Estate Planning Products
Please register your interest if you'd like assistance with:
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Advise on the tax implications for the donor and/or donee of any lifetime gifts of assets or money, whether already made or intended, and make recommendations if the gifts had unintended consequences.
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A beneficiary of an estate may choose to vary their inheritance and redirect their legacy for the benefit of someone else. A variation can sometimes be made with favourable tax consequences by executing a deed of variation within 2 years of the testator’s death, which treats the new beneficiary as if they were originally entitled under the will. Deeds of Variation are important instruments in estate planning and in minimising individuals' tax liabilities.
I will advise on the terms of an instrument of variation as part of the original beneficiary’s estate planning and inheritance tax mitigation strategy. -
Calculate inheritance tax liabilities and prepare the appropriate inheritance tax forms—such as IHT400, IHT205, or IHT100—for the personal representatives or trustees to sign and submit on behalf of the estate or trust.
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Advise on and calculate the potential tax liabilities that may arise from the transfer or disposal of assets as part of a divorce settlement. Identifying such liabilities early can reduce financial uncertainty and help equalise post-tax estates.
Inheritance Tax Advice Blog
I have written these blog posts in the hope that they provide you with valuable, free information to help you start thinking about your own estate planning.
Estate Planning FAQ
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Ideally, a chartered tax adviser, private client solicitor, and financial adviser would be engaged and work collaboratively, as each brings their own expertise, experience, and insights specific to their profession. A multidisciplinary team working to protect an estate's value would be desirable, but it is often impractical. If you were to work with just one, in my opinion, a chartered tax adviser is the most appropriate specialist for inheritance tax advice. This is due to the inherent complexity of tax legislation, with which a good tax adviser is highly familiar. Additionally, effective estate planning requires consideration not only of inheritance tax but also of other taxes, such as capital gains tax, income tax, and, in some cases, corporation tax and stamp duty land tax. Specialist knowledge of all UK taxes will benefit an adviser to preserve your wealth.
During the implementation phase of my estate planning process, other professionals are often engaged to assist with carrying out the approved plan. For example, a private client solicitor may be brought in to draft a trust deed, and a financial adviser may be involved to manage the trust’s investments on behalf of the appointed trustees.
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The IHT-free Estate API System simplifies traditional inheritance tax planning by dividing it into three distinct products: Ascertain, Plan and Implement, each of which can be ordered independently. By separating the stages of estate planning and implementation, the system also offers transparent pricing.
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The IHT-free Estate API System operates through a three-tier structure, where a client proceeds to the second tier (Plan) only after it has been ascertained that they have an inheritance tax liability requiring mitigation. This approach ensures that clients do not incur additional fees when there is no benefit. Additionally, if you order the Plan product and I am unable to recommend any inheritance tax-saving strategies, there will be no charge.
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No. With time and a well-considered plan, many estates can become free of IHT, saving significant sums of money for future beneficiaries.
However, sometimes an estate planning strategy is executed too late to completely mitigate the liability. In other cases, a testator may choose to retain an asset and accept that, by continuing to enjoy it, they will remain liable for inheritance tax as a result.
I should add that even a small amount of planning can often significantly reduce an unrealised IHT liability.
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The Ascertain report is a combination of two components:
A Statement of Net Worth is a personal balance sheet that provides a snapshot of your financial position at a given moment and is used to calculate your net estate, which serves as the starting point for the inheritance tax summary.
The Inheritance Tax Summary outlines any inheritance tax reliefs and/or exemptions available to you, as well as your projected inheritance tax liability based on your current financial position.
To prepare the Ascertain report, I will request details of your assets, liabilities, and income, in addition to other relevant information. I will ask you to provide this information in a questionnaire (a fillable pdf) that I will send after you have been onboarded as a client. For married couples or those in a civil partnership, a joint report will be provided.
Ascertaining your projected inheritance tax liability is the starting point of my estate planning system.
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It is at the Plan stage that your estate planning will truly benefit from the skills of a specialist inheritance tax adviser.
Following your instruction to proceed, I will discuss your circumstances with you and what you want to achieve with estate planning, ensuring any proposals are tailored to your expectations. I will then research and draft the Plan advice report.
The Plan report will begin by providing general information about the various inheritance tax allowances and exemptions for context, followed by an explanation of how each might apply to your estate.
The central part of the report is the most valuable, as this is where I will propose strategies to remove the value of certain assets from your estate and explain the potential costs and implications of following such strategies.
Additionally, I will advise you if I identify any adverse tax consequences arising from any provisions in your will.
Once the advice is compiled, you will receive a comprehensive report via email, which will include detailed advice along with a summary and recommendations. I will also arrange a convenient time to discuss the report's contents once you’ve had the opportunity to review it and discuss it with your advisers.
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It is at the Implement stage that I move beyond traditional inheritance tax planning. Typically, an inheritance tax specialist will step away at this point, leaving you with the report to act on the advice alone, even though implementation can be complicated, and not all tax issues are easily simplified.
At this stage, miscommunication or misunderstanding can render a plan’s objectives invalid. To prevent this, I can remain involved, and project manage the implementation of the plan on your behalf.
It is not unusual for the execution of a plan to require legal documents to be drafted and legal structures to be created. I will recommend trusted professionals from my network or work with your own legal and/or financial advisers to ensure everything is executed according to your wishes. Experts working collaboratively across disciplines to transfer your assets help ensure compliance and prevent inadvertent costs to your estate.
I will not step away from the implementation until the necessary legal work has been completed and the relevant professionals are engaged to handle ongoing compliance. In some cases, I may remain involved to carry out the compliance work myself.
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The IHT-free Estate API System introduces a specific focus that typically isn't part of the estate planning process: implementation. In my experience, clients are often left with a potentially complicated advice note to share with their other advisors, hoping each interprets the advice accurately to execute the strategy without errors.
In addition to my estate planning system, I am uniquely qualified to offer this service because:
I am one of only 20,000 members of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT). To become a member of the CIOT, candidates must pass the Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA) qualification, which is recognised and respected as a mark of technical excellence and professional integrity in the tax profession. The CTA qualification provides a competitive edge through more specialised tax advice, and my expertise can help individuals navigate complex tax laws effectively.
I am also a full member of STEP (Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners), known as a TEP. The 21,000 TEPs are internationally recognised as experts in their field, with proven qualifications and experience. STEP members include lawyers, chartered tax advisers, accountants, and other practitioners.
My membership with both professional bodies requires me to undertake a high level of continued career development learning.
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For examples of how I have helped my clients, I encourage you to read my blog posts. I often use my blog to review cases and highlight interesting inheritance tax mitigation strategies that go beyond the use of the nil rate band £325,000 threshold and the residence nil rate band.
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As a specialist in inheritance tax, income tax , capital gains tax, and stamp duty land tax, I can assist with most private client tax matters, subject to availability. If you’d like my assistance, please contact me through the contact form on this site and provide a brief description of your needs, and I will be in touch. Alternatively, you can call or email me using the details at the top of this page.
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Yes, my professional indemnity insurance provides coverage up to £2 million.
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Business Property Relief (“BPR”) and Agricultural Property Relief (“APR”) operate to reduce the value transferred by a transfer of value attributable to relevant business or agricultural property. These reliefs apply to both lifetime gifts and property included in the donor’s death estate.
There are a number of rules that must be satisfied to qualify for either BPR or APR, and these should be carefully considered before any transfer of value by the owner. I would be happy to assist with a detailed review of your assets to determine eligibility for business or agricultural property relief.
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Yes, legislation provides a number of exemptions that exclude certain assets from forming part of a chargeable transfer. These rules operate to permanently remove qualifying gifts from a charge to IHT and are, therefore, useful rules for transferring wealth to family members during your life without triggering a tax bill.
The following exemptions apply to lifetime gifts: gifts between spouses or civil partners; small gifts of up to £250 per recipient; an annual exemption of £3,000; gifts made in consideration of marriage or civil partnership; and, gifts that qualify as normal expenditure out of income.