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08 November 2024 / James Ward
Issue: 8093 / Categories: Opinion , Inheritance tax , Tax
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Budget fallout

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James Ward on why the families of business owners, landowners, and those with pension assets will be the most heavily impacted by the recent Budget measures

In her first budget, and subsequent media comments, our new Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has shown that she views inherited wealth as fair game for increased taxation. With over a trillion pounds worth of assets set to be transferred to the younger generations over the next few years, this is not an altogether surprising strategy for her to follow. Politically she sees this money as unearned and giving the recipients an unfair advantage in life.

Taxing matters

While the changes to CGT are less than many business owners feared (albeit the entrepreneurs relief tax rate disproportionally increases over the next couple of years), their businesses will be clobbered with the increase in the Minimum Wage and Employers National Insurance during the company’s lifetime and by the loss of full IHT business relief for asset transfer on death. Some owners may even decide it makes more sense to liquidate the business

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London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

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NEWS
Freezing orders in divorce proceedings can unexpectedly ensnare third parties and disrupt businesses. In NLJ this week, Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins explains how these orders—dubbed a ‘nuclear weapon’—preserve assets but can extend far beyond spouses to companies and business partners 
A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
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