In the run up to the election George Osbornes plans to provide Britains with a £1m nil rate band before paying inheritance tax, but is it really as simple as that?

As part of the ongoing electioneering, the conservative party have declared once again that they will raise the threshold before poeple pay inheritance tax to £1,000,000.

However I’ve had a number of clients asking me about this and on a review of the small print, it is not quite as straightforward as a simple matter of increasing the nil rate band (NRB). What the Tory’s are actually proposing is an additional main residence nil rate band of £175,000, which combined with the existing NRB will bring the total available to £500,000 per person. With a transferrable NRB that means that a married/civil partnered couple will be entitled to £1m of reliefs.

How and if this comes into effect will have to wait until after the election.