Awareness B — Inheritance Tax, Trusts & Estates
Core charges, exemptions, reliefs and administration for lifetime gifts, death and trusts.
How to study the CTA Qualification
Confirm your route first, use the 2026 Finance Act basis, complete the CBEs early and align Awareness, Advanced Technical and APS choices before developing integrated advisory answers.
Core concepts
Concept 1
Classify a transfer before calculating the lifetime or death charge.
Exam cue: Define the people, entities, transactions and dates relevant to awareness b — inheritance tax, trusts & estates.
Concept 2
Apply exemptions, nil-rate bands and reliefs only after checking their conditions.
Exam cue: Select the current CIOT syllabus rule, apply it to the evidence and show any necessary calculation.
Concept 3
Recognise how settled property creates entry, periodic and exit-charge questions.
Exam cue: State the compliance, professional and practical next step supported by the analysis.
Risk pitfalls and guardrails
Treating awareness b — inheritance tax, trusts & estates as a memory list without applying the scenario facts.
Guardrail: Do not mix route-specific requirements, choose conflicting Awareness and AT areas, use an obsolete tax rule, assume relief conditions or omit evidence, deadlines and ethics.
Assuming a relief, exemption, route or tax treatment without checking every condition.
Guardrail: Do not mix route-specific requirements, choose conflicting Awareness and AT areas, use an obsolete tax rule, assume relief conditions or omit evidence, deadlines and ethics.
Using an obsolete rule, missing a deadline or omitting the professional-conduct response.
Guardrail: Do not mix route-specific requirements, choose conflicting Awareness and AT areas, use an obsolete tax rule, assume relief conditions or omit evidence, deadlines and ethics.
Memory anchors
Awareness B — Inheritance Tax, Trusts & Estates — Scope
Classify a transfer before calculating the lifetime or death charge.
Awareness B — Inheritance Tax, Trusts & Estates — Rule
Apply exemptions, nil-rate bands and reliefs only after checking their conditions.
Awareness B — Inheritance Tax, Trusts & Estates — Method
Recognise how settled property creates entry, periodic and exit-charge questions.
Awareness B — Inheritance Tax, Trusts & Estates — Risk
Coordinate Inheritance Tax with Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax consequences.
Awareness B — Inheritance Tax, Trusts & Estates — Action
Identify the liable person, valuation date, return, payment and records.
Checkpoint rule
Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.
Knowledge Check (after reading)
Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.
Check-up Questions
An individual gives £40,000 outright to an adult child and survives seven years. Ignoring exemptions, how is the transfer treated for IHT?
A donor made no other gifts and gives £5,000 to a child in 2025/26 after using no annual exemption in 2024/25. How much is covered by annual exemptions?
Answer all questions to submit.
Next step personalized recommendations
Continue learning
Move forward only after this module is stable.
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