Readers' forum: A question of time

I understand there is concern that future governments could reduce the availability or the current rates of agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR). I am therefore looking at options to ‘bank’ the present attractive rates of relief. While taking into account the capital gains tax and other practical considerations my thoughts are to look at transferring relevant property now to secure these inheritance tax reliefs. It seems that APR and BPR would become relevant only in the event of the transferor dying within seven years from the date of the transfer because after that time the property will fall out of the transferor’s estate and no further inheritance tax reliefs are needed. On APR HMRC’s Inheritance Tax Manual at IHTM24140 states that for a potentially exempt transfer that becomes chargeable as a result of the donor’s death the rates at the date of...