I am trying to get my head around the inheritance tax changes!!

I am trying to get my head around the forthcoming changes in British inheritance tax. These were announced by UK chancellor Alistair Darling in his recent pre-budget speech. The inheritance tax threshold is to doubled to £600,000 and then slowly lifted to £700,000 by the year 2010.

In the edition of Internationalmarketing.co.uk dated November 8th, 2007 it was stated that "The rules are complex and the terms of everyone's will and their trusts, if they have them, are different. The important thing is to recognise that the tax regime has changed significantly and for the better but that people may need to act now to ensure their families derive the maximum benefit when they die.
The changes affect anyone with an estate more than £300,000 and increasingly when the figure get towards and over £600,000."

Inheritance tax is so complex in the United Kingdom but it would be quite simple to scrap it like in Australia.

Telegraph's Damian Reece rails against CGT changes

In his City Editorial for the Daily Telegraph, Damian Reece rails against
the increased capital gains tax (CGT) levied on entrepreneurs. Reece describes
business startups as "a social good". I think it is a social necessity especially
as we sell our bigger companies to foreigners, who can chop the headquarters
of a big group as easily as "we can say un, deux trois or uno, dos, tres with
a mini-Spanish invasion swooping up BAA, O2 and Scottish Power. What did we do
in return, I suppose Barclays bid for Banco Zaragozano does count.

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:eiSTF5ddQ3M-HM:http://www.deftec.co.uk/photographs/images/DEFTEC%2520Damian%2520Reece%2520to%2520AIS%2520close-up.jpg

Maybe, Chancellor Alistair Darling will clean up the mess he is making. However,
he will be unable to shake off the suspicion that he is the monkey. My view is
that if CGT is simplified, then the tax take would go up and we would have more
money to invest (waste?) in public sector things. In terms of public disclosure,
I have paid CGT in the past.

CGT or not to CGT that is the question!!

I suppose the personal investor needs an accountant or an independent financial adviser to work out the British form of torture Capital Gains Tax or CGT. There
is a great temptation to ignore it altogether since it is so complicated.

I have looked at the HMRC website
and I am really none the wiser.

For business assets UK Chancellor Alistair Darling is proposing an 80 percent increase in the levy and even three judges in the BBC show "Dragons Den"
are joining the protest.