To think that parents cannot leave money to severely disabled offspring free of IHT

Yes, of course - been along day and I'm tired! 🤦‍♀️💤🛌

There is a provision for disabled people, infact there are benefits that are only available to disabled people or there carers. Benefits for disabled people are over and above able bodied for this reason.
But the fact you want your child to have th3 opportunity to go on holidays Isn't societies burden, that is yours.

If you want toensure your adult child lives a financially comfortable life it's for you to provide, provide them with additional money now while you are alive that can be saved and used for their later life. As others have said IHT is largely avoidable, speak to an accountant.

The thing is, some of us do have a clue what it’s like to have a severely disabled child, and still disagree. I do have a “fucking clue how hard it is,” and what it’s like to worry about what will be available to them once we’re gone.

But - there is no way I’d be claiming he was being forced into poverty by having to pay a tax that is due on a large sum of money, or suggesting he should still get means tested benefits with that money available to him.

We claim what we need, and nothing more. I still would not be comfortable claiming public funds while he had £300k in the bank.

He is disabled, that is challenging, but that doesn’t make him or us a charity.

Please do look at trusts. Some supported living options are only available to people who are in receipt of housing benefit. If he isn't eligible his care and support options may be reduced.

It isn’t. It’s paid by the estate of the decreased.

IHT is due within six months of death unless you’re a farmer when it can be paid over ten years.

Help me understand this argument about farmers being asset rich and cash poor. IHT isn't due until they sell the richness of their assets, so how is it relevant that they're cash poor if no IHT is due from that cash?

The IHT is paid from the estate though, whenever it's paid. It amounts to the same thing...

As I understand it, the OP has other kids who will also share in the inheritance, but I get your point about the million quid.

However, you are way out of touch with what it's like living as a disabled person on benefits. Benefits are really very low when you consider that on average a disabled person needs an additional £975 pay month to have the same standard of living as a non-disabled person (2023 figures - much more now). That's an average so it'll be considerably more for severely disabled people. Consider wheelchair users, for example. Normally the NHS will only cover the cost of a basic wheelchair if you need to use it in your home. Many people need a powered chair which they can't use in their homes. The cost of a powered chair which can cope with more than just shopping centre terrain can easily cost £12000, which the disabled person has to self-fund.

Benefits are intended to cover the bear minimum, but for many disabled people they don't even cover that. Add to that the fact that benefits are regularly reviewed so you live with the very really fear that at any time the plug could be pulled and you will have no funding without an ability to earn a living (bear in mind that 75% of people denied PIP have it overturned by tribunal, so they were denied vital benefits to rich they were actually entitled because of their disability, and that legal process typically takes over a year).

A disproportionate number of people on social housing waiting lists are disabled people who are unable (not unwilling!) to work for a living but there is a desperate shortage of social housing so they have to rely on often substandard, overpriced private rented accommodation. Housing benefit generally covers no more than about half the average monthly cost of private rented accommodation. The rest has to be paid from the benefits which are intended to cover the additional expenditure required by the disability.

You're quite blasé about benefits and disabled people, but you don't seem to have a grasp of the living hell that relying on benefits is, over and above the hell of living with disability.

I find your last paragraph particularly disturbing. Disabled people don't choose to be disabled. Why should they be forced to live a life of abject poverty? Why shouldn't they have enough to live on to be able to afford the occasional meal out or even the odd weekend/week away? This would not be scrounging as your last paragraph implies - it would be a civilised way to treat the most vulnerable in a civilised country. Our taxes are used for all sorts of things - why not to enable the most vulnerable to have a reasonable (not luxury) standard of living? Don't forget that many disabled folk become disabled after paying a lifetime of taxes themselves.

I really think you should reevaluate your views on benefits and the disabled. You never know - tomorrow it could be you!

Its the living relatives who pay it and I’m sure they could put it to better use for their future and their own children’s’ future or do you subscribe to the current government’s view that we should all have nothing and be happy with that ? The assets belong to the family , not to a government.

How does it discourage self reliance when not one living person has ever paid it?

Just scrap inheritance tax, it’s a greedy unwarranted demand from the state who have already taxed hard earned income at 20-40 percent and discourages self reliance. Perhaps the lazy and feckless should have their benefits stopped and be encouraged to get a job. Rant over , but every thing we do is taxed excessively and still the government want more to piss up the wall

Taxation is essential for us to have health, defense, social services, education etc, etc, etc. Someone (or should I say nearly everyone) has to pay tax and better it be taken from unearned wealth than the average earner struggling to manage. Of course there has to be IHT and I’d prefer more people to have to pay it. This is diverging from the disability post I know. I understand Mencap give advice regarding financial planning for the disabled.

I think what needs to be taken into consideration without being morbid is when you and your husband are likely to pass away. I seriously doubt if you pass at 80 for example your son is 30 - this needing to live on this for 50 years.

i don’t know exactly but let’s say you both pass by 80 and had your son at 30, it would then be 25-30 years for your son.

i think you need to see a financial advisor, consider how you can will (which you can at least 7 years before you pass) your son money before and speak to your adult children about how they can support and help.

Comparing to farmers was wrong and gets no sympathy from me. You also don’t know the full facts of the farming situation as you have omitted they will also have to pay capital gains tax taking them to the 40% threshold. I’m not a farmer but this isn’t about farmers it about those who invest in land to avoid paying tax. And while we are here, Dyson bought £450 million in land BUT invested £150millon and his profits on that land are about £5 million or less than 1%.

its very difficult for you to consider but I wouldn’t blame another group and feel that your fears can be allayed by good financial planning and support.

Do I think the money raised by removing the exemption for farmers should be used to fund yet another exemption? Absolutely not.
My heart goes out to you OP, it sounds like a crappy situation, but you paying less tax at the end isn't the solution, it just creates another inequality. What about those who die with dependents under 18? Or caring for elderly relatives? Should they be exempt?

Lots of posters have no empathy and not a fucking clue how hard it is to have a severely disabled child.

I have one myself and I will be leaving the money in a vulnerable trust or leave it to my other child who is NT to help her brother out personally.

He will be getting everything he’s entitled too without everything I leave him being taken into account.

He can’t change being disabled and fuck anyone that thinks he should live below the breadline because he can’t work.

You need specialist advice from a lawyer with expertise in this area + around social services means testing which can be more complicated to plan for than IHT.

Possible options:

• Leave nothing to your disabled child - leave their share outright to someone you trust to use it for them.
• Disabled Person's Trust (relies on ongoing receipt of PIP so riskier than in the past)
• Lifetime gifts - a house / flat if he can live alone with visiting support. (A property you're living in is normally excluded as an asset for means testing)
• Other chunky gifts that can make sense because they can't be taken away would be things like lifetime membership of places / organisations he's interested in - the National Trust is an obvious one if he's into places like that but there may well be others more suited to his interests.
• Plan to avoid social services involvement (not in a refusal to deal with them way) in order to avoid their means testing - how independent can he be? Can he manage with support from family / friends/ privately funded personal assistants? There's a level of disability where this isn't viable but if it is it's worth looking at, for greater control over any paid staff.

I don’t have anything useful to add but I just felt sad reading some of these posts. I hope that you manage to speak to a financial advisor who can come up with an amazing plan for you and you come away feeling a whole load better. I’m a disabled adult, but a pretty independent one. And I thank God for that. Or there would go, I - and people have very little compassion sometimes.
Sending you a hug. Though it may be useless… and a wish for some wonderful advice. Sorry it wasn’t from me. Take care xx

Your post is tone deaf. I have a disabled stepdaughter who lives with us. We are comfortable but at present very unlikely pay IHT. She will inherit our house and a bit of money.

Yes she will have a lower standard living, but she won't have to pay rent or a mortgage and her trust will be managed by a relative from each side of the family.

She will be fine. And she won't be on any more benefits than she currently gets.

You are conflating a reduced living standard to being on benefits which is not the same. Maybe he'll have to share a pool with others, or go on holiday to a less luxurious resort.

It's called life.

Be grateful that your son has been able to enjoy such things and isn't in a position of poverty and never will be. Plenty of disabled kids will end up being warehoused in care homes. Thank goodness mine and yours won't be because we have assets.

Seriously why should you pay less tax just because your kid is disabled? Your kid is not a reason to excuse your contribution to the rest of society.

💐 horrible isn't it

I’m happy for my estate to be liable for it. A share of a tax free windfall of £500k or a million should be enough for anyone.

No one should be bickering about how much IHT people should be paying. Instead, everyone should be getting together to campaign to scrap it all together because it's nothing short of robbery by the government. I'll never be subject to it unless I win the lottery, but I feel for those that will.

Agreed.

There is absolutely no way that anyone should be claiming means tested benefits, when they have funds to support themselves available. Disabled or otherwise.

Spend the money available first, then claim benefits if/when needed.

It sounds to me like OP’s complaint is that she’s not quite rich enough, which I’m sure is a real hardship.

On your argument all severely disabled people should remain in poverty.

I didn’t say anything of the kind and there’s no logic to that conclusion. What I am saying is that nobody in possession of or with access to a six figure sum should be eligible for state benefits. And nothing you say will change my mind.

For a farmer a large amount of the value is tied up in farm equipment, stock and farm buildings which are essential to run the farm. If you have to pay IHT on all of that the farm becomes unviable and will likely have to be sold probably to investors not farmers and then it will become unproductive. Goodbye to locally grown crops and locally reared meat..