Readers’ forum: Trust gains

I act for a trust whose life tenant died in May 2020. I appreciate that gains up to the life tenant’s death are chargeable on the trustees who benefited from a vulnerable beneficiary election. On the life tenant’s death the assets are rebased to probate value and the remaindermen become absolutely entitled against the trustees. I have always assumed this meant that future disposals would be chargeable on those remaindermen because the trustees would then hold the assets on bare trust.

However I am no longer confident of this analysis in respect of the assets which will have to be realised to pay the inheritance tax chargeable on the death. Those assets are surely not sold for or on behalf of the beneficiaries so I assume that any gains (calculated with probate value as the starting point) must be assessable on the trustees....