Even very experienced paraplanners can trip over obstacles lurking in the shadows of IHT.

So we invited Aegon’s tax and trusts manager, Elaine Cruickshank, to join host, Richard Allum, for an online Assembly to help you dodge the IHT perils.

Over the course of one lunch-hour, Elaine:

What can you expect to take away?

Watch or listen now and you’ll have a sharper grasp of the IHT detail that’s easy to get wrong. Plus the confidence to spot these issues in your own client cases.

Watch or listen now

Missed it? Then follow the links below to download Elaine’s slides, watch the replay or catch up with the podcast now.

The outstanding questions

There were so many questions on this Assembly that we ran out of time, so Elaine has provided us with the answers to the outstanding questions, as well as provide a clarification on the final question of the Assembly.

Can the small gifts exemption and the annual £3,000 exemption be given to the same recipient?

If a gift in excess of the £250 small gifts exemption is made, then as this gift is more than the small gifts exemption, the full gift would be allocated against the annual exemption (assuming that this was available).

Why is it called Inheritance Tax? Shouldn’t it be called Estate Tax, as it is (normally) the estate that pays?

“Inheritance Tax” is a better reflection of what the tax is intended to cover — rather than simply being a tax on an estate at death, there could also be IHT applying to lifetime transfers.

Is it best to space significant gifts at least 7 years apart then?

Each gift has its own 7-year clock, but whenever a gift is being made you have to consider the cumulative impact of any gifts made in the previous 7 years. If the donor dies within 7 years of a gift, earlier gifts use up the nil-rate band first before later gifts are considered. Making very large gifts close together can therefore increase the IHT exposure of later gifts, if death occurs within 7 years. Taper relief may reduce the IHT on gifts made more than 3 years before death, but it does not reduce the value of the gift itself for nil-rate band purposes.

Does tax-free income from a beneficiary’s pension (where the spouse dies under age 75), either through an annuity or under FAD, count towards regular income when considering gifting out of surplus income?

This is a grey area and will probably require a tax case to provide clarification. As this money is completely exempt from income tax, HMRC could view the regular withdrawals of this nature as capital rather than income.

Is there a length of time for the ‘main residence’ qualification to be lost?

For the Residence Nil Rate Band, there is no specific minimum or maximum period between the property ceasing to be the deceased’s main residence and their death. The key point is that the property must have been a qualifying residential interest, meaning a property that the deceased occupied as a residence at some point during their ownership. For the downsizing addition, they have to downsize or dispose of the property on or after 8 July 2015, but there is no stipulated timeframe between the date of downsizing/disposal and death.

What if they still own the property but have also moved into a care home? 

A property can qualify even if the individual was living in a care home at death, provided the property had been their main residence at some point and they leave the property to their direct descendants. The amount of residence nil rate band available will generally be the lower of the available RNRB and the value of the qualifying residential interest passing to direct descendants, and it may also be reduced by the taper reduction if the estate exceeds £2 million.

If they own a house worth less than the RNRB, should they upsize to make the most of it?

If they upsize and buy a bigger house, the value of the estate would generally remain unchanged — they now have a larger property and less cash. However, if they live in the bigger property as their main residence and leave this to their direct descendants in their will, then they could in theory qualify for the full residence nil rate band if the value of the house was equal to or higher than the residence nil rate band and the £2,000,000 tapering threshold was not breached. However, tax mitigation isn’t the only factor to consider here — there would be the costs of moving house, larger council tax and utility bills etc, which could be more significant than any IHT saving achieved.

Can RNRB apply to an IIP trust, where some people have moved their home into a solicitor’s trust and continued to live in it?

It sounds as though this type of arrangement would potentially be a gift with reservation of benefit, with the value of the property remaining in their IHT estates. Whether or not the RNRB would apply in this scenario would depend on the provisions of the trust. Are the direct descendants the beneficiaries of the trust, and do the trust provisions meet the conditions of ‘directly inheriting’ the property?

An odd feature of paraplanning is that quite a bit of our time is spent designing strategies that are all about the inevitability of death but – just like in our everyday lives – lots of our clients seem reluctant to talk about death and dying and being prepared for it.

Yet the financial grief that families and friends face following a death serves only to compound the overwhelming emotional kind.

That’s what this Assembly is all about. Kylie Clark of Wealthtime, Katy Hancock of Dorothy House Hospice Care and Lucy Halliday from Argonaut Paraplanning joined Richard Allum to talk about death and dying.

Because at a time when a growing percentage of clients are reaching an age when they should be dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s in plenty of time before they die, what can paraplanners do to help them get death-ready?

What you’ll learn

Watch or listen now

Paraplanners from all across the UK got together to share ideas, ask questions and break the big taboo about death. Plus there’s one hour’s CPD available.

Missed it? Then follow the links below and watch the replay or catch up with the podcast now.

Are you an outsourced paraplanner?

Whether you’re the only employee of your paraplanning practice, or you lead a paraplanning powerhouse with employees and a hefty bank of clients, outsourced paraplanners share lots of things in common.

You just do.

But here’s the thing: despite the growing number of outsourced paraplanners in the UK these days, opportunities to get together to talk only about things that matter in the outsourced world, are surprisingly few and far between.

Switch off. Show up. Join in. 

So, if you’re an outsourced paraplanner, here’s our invitation: at 1pm on Thursday 27 August 2026, set your notifications to ‘do not disturb’, click on the Zoom link in your event invitation and gather with other outsourced paraplanners across the UK for an hour of conversation, ideas and practical insights.

There’s nothing to prepare.

We’re starting this Assembly discussing fees and see where it goes from there.

Spaces are limited. To save a spot hit ‘Book Event’ and look out for the calendar invitation in your inbox.

We all have pension questions we’ve never quite got round to asking. Maybe the moment wasn’t right. Maybe the right expertise wasn’t around. Maybe you just didn’t want to be the one to ask.

That’s why in this Assembly, we staged a pension intervention. Because host Richard Allum posed the most pressing pension-related questions to someone who just loves answering them: Quilter’s retirement and pension technical specialist, Adam Cole.

Over one lunch hour, we worked our way through pension topics that either crop up regularly in client cases or maybe just leave you scratching your head from time to time. Things like:

What can you expect to take away?

Watch or listen now to brush up on your pension knowledge. And don’t forget to follow the link below to download your certificate for CPD.

The rules are changing and from April 2027 and unspent pension pots will fall within the scope of inheritance tax. Draft legislation is now published, and there’s plenty for paraplanners to get to grips with.

This Assembly looks at how we got here, and where we need to go with less than nine months to go. We looked at what the May 2026 HMRC technical note and draft legislation actually confirmed, what it means in practice, and, what it means for the planning advice paraplanners are helping to shape right now.

On 1 July 2026, host Richard Allum was joined by guest Mark Devlin, Senior Technical Manager at M&G, to practically address some of the trickier questions the changes raise.

Together, they covered:

What can you expect to take away?

At the end of this Assembly, you’ll have a better understanding of the confirmed changes, a better grasp of the planning considerations that flow from them, and some practical frameworks to bring to your paraplanning work, whether you’re reviewing existing pension strategies or helping to shape new ones.

We got together online at 1pm on Wed 17 June 2026 for The Self-Assembly Paraplanning Show.

Why ‘Self-Assembly’? Because host Sam Tonks and guests Alan Gow, Jackie Manning and Kimberley Malin started out with four talking points to cover in one lunch-hour. The topics were

– how the paraplanning year has gone so far
– what’s coming up for paraplanners
– what could be a thing but isn’t yet, and
– what events and resources they’re recommending right now

The result is a wide-ranging conversation that takes in mixed feelings about AI (it’s handy for handover emails, but when it’s confidently wrong..?), chat about rising role of annuities and gifting from excess income, plus questions about the decline of cash, what advice might look like in the future if so-called ‘finfluencers’ are allowed to continue to ‘finfluence’.

Fancy tuning in? Then watch or listen now

Setting up your own outsourced paraplanning business can be an exciting prospect but going into it with your eyes open  and with the benefit of other people’s hard-won experience makes for a much stronger start.

On Wednesday 3 June, our guests had an honest, practical conversation about what it really takes to start an outsourced paraplanning business.

Host Richard Allum was joined by three paraplanners who’ve recently been through the process: Jawaad Tanwir founder of ParaplanX, Ellie Bailey founder of Paraflo, and Phillip Williams of Beyond Paraplanning (and author of ‘What If?…: A Guide To Working Smart & Building Your Own Path In Paraplanning‘).

Together they reflected on their own experiences and shared what they’ve learned, covering:

What can you expect to take away?

After tuning into this Assembly, you’ll leave with a clearer picture of what outsourced paraplanning business life actually looks like including the opportunity, the reality, and the things worth thinking through before you commit. Whether you’re seriously considering it or just curious, this is an opportunity to hear from people who’ve been exactly where you are.

Are you an outsourced paraplanner?

Whether you’re the only employee of your paraplanning practice, or you lead a paraplanning powerhouse with employees and a hefty bank of clients, outsourced paraplanners share lots of things in common.

You just do.

But here’s the thing: despite the growing number of outsourced paraplanners in the UK these days, opportunities to get together to talk only about things that matter in the outsourced world, are surprisingly few and far between.

Switch off. Show up. Join in. 

So, if you’re an outsourced paraplanner, here’s our invitation: at 1pm on Thursday 25 June 2026, set your notifications to ‘do not disturb’, click on the Zoom link in your event invitation and gather with other outsourced paraplanners across the UK for an hour of conversation, ideas and practical insights.

There’s nothing to prepare.

We’re starting this Assembly discussing fees and see where it goes from there.

Spaces are limited. To save a spot hit ‘Book Event’ and look out for the calendar invitation in your inbox.

Think about the last time you worked on a financial plan for a family with a child or adult with special educational needs or a disability (SEND). How confident were you that the plan truly reflected what that family needs, not just now, but for the long term?

As paraplanners, we’re in a position to make a real difference but only if we understand what good planning for these families actually looks like.

So in this Assembly first-time host Peter Spence from Fintuity was joined by Ali Fanshawe and Rhiannon Gogh, co-founders of SENDA who are specialists who work with financial and legal advisers to deliver safer, smarter planning for SEND families.

All three participants have children with SEND needs.

What the Assembly covers

Together, Peter, Ali and Rhiannon talked about what special needs planning really involves, where traditional advice tends to fall short, and what paraplanners can do to fill that gap.

The conversation covers:

What can you expect to take away?

By tuning into this Assembly, you’ll get a clearer sense of where special needs planning is different and what to start thinking about when planning for SEND needs. It’s an introduction to the subject rather than a complete guide. But it’s a great primer which offers practical ideas you can use right now. Ideas that will give confidence about doing the right thing for clients whose plans need to take account of family members with special educational needs and disabilities.

When a client is moving into retirement and suddenly becomes far more aware of every market dip, smoothed funds can feel like an obvious solution. But how well do you really understand what’s happening under the bonnet?

More providers are launching smoothed funds, which means they’re cropping up more often in research and recommendations. Yet the mechanics and the meaningful differences between the various types aren’t always well understood. If you’ve ever found yourself focusing more on the smoothing overlay than the underlying fund, this session is for you.

Almost everything you need to know about smoothed funds in one hour

On Wednesday 8 April 2026, first-time Assembly host Jawaad Tanwir, founder of outsourced paraplanning practice ParaplanX, was joined by Ed Green from M&G for a practical, product-agnostic look at how smoothed funds actually work.

Ed started where it makes most sense to start: with the client. Why do smoothed funds exist at all? What role does psychology play in the transition into retirement, and when does reducing short-term volatility genuinely serve a client’s interests? From there, the conversation got into the detail paraplanners need.

During this Assembly, we covered:

What you will take away

By watching or listening to this Assembly, you’ll have a clearer understanding of smoothed funds. You’ll be able to cut through the product noise and research them with more confidence. Whether you’re encountering smoothed funds for the first time or want to sharpen your existing knowledge, this is a practical session designed to give you exactly what you need to do your job better.