About this site
Sources, method and corrections
Every answer on this site is written by Steve Hunt ACII TEP, a Chartered Insurance Risk Manager and Trust and Estate Practitioner who has worked in UK financial services since 1980. This page explains where the answers come from, how they are backed up, and what has been corrected.
How each answer is backed up
Beside each answer is a Sources line, and each page ends with a full list of its sources. Every source carries one of these labels, so you can see what kind of authority stands behind each statement:
- Law: the Act and section, linked to the official text on legislation.gov.uk.
- HMRC: HMRC's manuals, technical notes and GOV.UK guidance: HMRC's reading of the law, not the law itself.
- Provider evidence: real quotations and insurers' answers, dated and held on file, with no client information.
- Published source: figures and history credited to the publication that reported them.
- Steve's analysis: Steve's own reading or arithmetic, where it goes beyond settled law or HMRC's published view.
- Steve's experience: Steve's recollection of more than 45 years in UK financial services.
Where the law is clear, it comes first, linked to the official text. Where HMRC's published view and Steve's reading differ, both are shown and labelled.
Videos and transcripts
Each video page carries the full transcript of its video. The transcript records what is said in the video, and its words are not changed after publication. If something said in a video needs correcting or qualifying, a dated note is added beside the words it relates to.
Dates
Each page shows when it was published and when it was last reviewed. The review date changes only when the page has actually been reviewed, not to make it look fresh. Tax rules change, so always check the date.
Corrections and updates
1 October 2026
All three video pages were reviewed against the law and HMRC's published guidance. These are the changes.
- The answer to 'Is the income from a nominees' annuity taxable?' used to begin 'Yes'. It now explains that the income is taxable where the member dies at 75 or over, as in the example, and can be paid free of income tax where the member dies under 75 (Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, s.646B(3)).
- The page now makes clear that it is about the nominees' annuity bought in the member's lifetime, which is the version excluded from inheritance tax, and that nominees' annuities can also be bought after the member's death by a different route. It also explains that the related annuity can be a separate contract bought within 7 days of the member's own annuity.
- Paragraph 27A of Schedule 28 to the Finance Act 2004, which defines a nominee, was said to have been inserted by the Finance Act 2015. It was inserted by the Taxation of Pensions Act 2014. The Finance Act 2015 inserted paragraph 27AA.
- The question whether buying one is a gift is labelled as Steve's analysis, with HMRC's technical note quoted alongside, and the £50,000 figure is described as an illustration, not the statutory valuation.
- The nominee's minimum age is stated as 40 or over throughout, tied to the insurers' answers in August 2026.
- Dated notes were added to the transcript on the definition, the nominee's age, the separate-contract route, the after-death route and income tax.
Pensions and inheritance tax from April 2027
- The worked example now lists all of its assumptions, including the transferred nil rate bands, the home passing to direct descendants, and Amy drawing £24,000 a year for 15 years.
- The question 'Can inheritance tax on a £500,000 pension really cost more than the pension itself?' is now 'Can the combined family tax cost of a £500,000 pension be more than the pension itself?', because the £516,000 includes income tax and is not all taken from the pension.
- The exclusion for dependants' scheme pensions is now described the same way everywhere: it is not limited to defined benefit schemes.
- Paying the inheritance tax straight from the pension is shown as an option that the example uses, not a rule.
- The source of the £1 trillion estimate is given, and dated notes were added to the transcript on the same points.
- 'The trust gets back more than is paid in unless the life assured lives to nearly 102' is now tied to the particular age-75 quotation, with the warning that total premiums can exceed the payout.
- The page now names the type of policy it describes, a conventional policy with guaranteed, non-reviewable premiums, and says that 'the premiums are not lost' does not mean they are refunded.
- Premiums paid into a trust are now explained as gifts that are exempt only where an exemption applies, and the example's assumption that they qualify is stated.
- The 60% comparison now carries its assumptions, and the history of the 1980s is labelled as Steve's experience.
- Dated notes were added to the transcript on the same points.
All pages
- Every answer now has a Sources line linking to the law on legislation.gov.uk and to HMRC's guidance on GOV.UK, with each source labelled.
- This page was added.
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Everything on this site is education only. It is not advice, not a personal recommendation, and not an invitation to do business. Tax rules change, and nothing here takes account of your circumstances.