{"id":421020,"date":"2026-04-05T06:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/421020\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T06:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:40:18","slug":"how-to-protect-your-life-savings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/421020\/","title":{"rendered":"how to protect your life savings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Combined with the family property and other assets, the inclusion of pensions in the inheritance tax net will mean even those with <a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/money\/tax\/inheritance\/families-in-line-for-inheritance-tax-grab-to-triple\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">modest estates are likely to be affected<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what you can do today to shield your hard-earned pension savings from the taxman.<\/p>\n<p>Giving gifts<\/p>\n<p>Giving gifts during your lifetime is one of the simplest ways to bring down the value of your estate so it falls within the tax-free allowances.<\/p>\n<p>Inheritance tax is paid at a rate of 40pc on assets over \u00a3325,000, with an additional \u00a3175,000 for anyone passing a main residence to a direct descendant.<\/p>\n<p>Married couples can combine allowances to shield up to \u00a31m. If your estate exceeds this, there could be tax to pay \u2013 and, if your estate is more than \u00a32m, the property allowance will start to gradually reduce.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to these, taxpayers get a \u00a33,000 annual inheritance tax exemption for gifts to use during their lifetime. You can also bring forward the previous year\u2019s allowance, if you haven\u2019t already used it.<\/p>\n<p>There is also a \u00a3250 \u201csmall gifts\u201d allowance, which is the maximum gift value per person \u2013 but you can give up to \u00a3250 to as many people as you like (as long as you haven\u2019t used another allowance on them).<\/p>\n<p>Other gifts might start out as being liable for inheritance tax but, over time, they drop out of your estate.<\/p>\n<p>These are known as \u201cpotentially exempt transfers\u201d, which come under the seven-year rule \u2013 because gifts (of any value) made seven years or more before death will not be considered part of your estate, and will be in no danger of inheritance tax.<\/p>\n<p>If you die sooner, inheritance tax may be payable on the gift, but the rate tapers after three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Combined with the family property and other assets, the inclusion of pensions in the inheritance tax net will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[188646,79,18,9997,19,6500,17,825,234,235,188648,1702,4520,188647,188649,46523],"class_list":{"0":"post-421020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-better-life-guide","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-financial-planning-for-retirement","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-inheritance-tax","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-money","16":"tag-personal-finance","17":"tag-personalfinance","18":"tag-private-pensions","19":"tag-standard","20":"tag-tax","21":"tag-tax-in-retirement","22":"tag-tax-rises","23":"tag-top-story"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116350735183293202","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}