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Finance (No. 2) Bill

The trust allows the testator to split the property between his second spouse and his children in a way that he believes is sensible and balances their interests. The typical arrangement is for the second spouse to be given access to the income from the property and the right to live in a property, but for the capital to be preserved and passed on to the children on death. The legislation ignores the realities of modern family life. Trusts provide an invaluable prop for those who are juggling the competing and sometimes conflicting interests of different family members—a prop that the Government wish to kick away. As Stephen Pallister of solicitors Charles Russell pointed out:"““Thinking of the numerous and obvious reasons why a spouse might leave their estate for the other on death—health, financial difficulties, unstable personality, second marriage and wanting to preserve the capital for the children of a first marriage, etc.—this is a gross mistake by the Government.””" Even if people are prepared to sacrifice the flexibility that I have mentioned to avoid the new charges, there are further flaws in the Government’s argument that there is no problem with their proposal because people can change their wills or trusts to prevent the new charges from applying. The first problem is that the power to vary the trust is exactly the type of flexibility that the Government seek to outlaw through the restrictive conditions on receiving the spousal exemption, so it seems odd that they are defending their actions by encouraging people to use the system that they propose effectively to outlaw. Secondly, many variations can be carried out only by going to court—for example, where children are involved—which may not give people permission to vary the trust. The costs of a High Court hearing in the chancery division are prohibitive and will not be justifiable in most of the cases covered by the new rules. Furthermore, there must be a question mark over how well the courts will cope with the significant burden of hearing so many cases. Frankly, it is not easy to see exactly what tax problem the Revenue is targeting with its proposals. It has indicated informally that its concern is a situation in which the surviving spouse gives up their life interest and distributes all assets to the trust for the next generation. If that is the Revenue’s concern, then it is attacking the wrong target. It is not the flexibility in the trusts that allows people to reduce their tax bill in the situation that I have outlined, but the use of the potentially exempt transfer system, which exempts the transfer of the life interest from inheritance tax, if the spouse survives for seven years after they have given up the life interest.