Phased Surrender of Offshore Investment Bonds
CharlieSmithson
Member
Hello.
We have several clients who have received segments of investment bonds gifted from their parents.
One client in particular has 2 offshore bonds with combined surrender value £220,000 and a gain of £160,000. This is over approximately 25 years, so the slice would fall within basic rate. Her salary is her only other income and is £40,000.
We have explored surrendering over several tax years so she can retain her personal allowance.
There was a rule change for bonds varied since 2013 (including assignment I have read) meaning if there is an excess event, any future top slicing is only from the last event. Since we would phase these investments over several tax years, we would do this by fully surrendering some of the individual segments each year. Would this create a problem for future top slicing?
Please let me know if there are any other key considerations I should take into account.
Thanks
Charlie
Comments
The details of the April 2013 change are here in this table - https://www.mandg.com/wealth/adviser-services/tech-matters/investments-and-taxation/top-slicing-relief/top-slicing-relief-facts#how-spreading-works
You always go back to commencement when you are doing a surrender.
Your last question is a bit wide but you should consider whether the upside of wherever the money is going is worth a one off tax hit of £2,514 to get their quicker.
Thanks.
Just to be clear, if you have a bond with 30 segments and this tax year, you surrender 15 and next year, you surrender the remaining 15, do you get the full top-slicing relief from the commencement of the bond on both of these?
The 2013 rules only apply to when you make part surrenders on the same individual policy/segment as far I can see.
Please let me know if my understanding is correct there.
Many thanks
You are correct - full surrenders of individual segments are always back to commencement.
Awesome. Thanks for the quick reply