Wealth Planning
The order in which you use your allowances, wrappers and pensions decides how much of your wealth survives to the next generation. We set that order, then revisit it every year.
01 · Scope
What this covers, and what it does not.
This service covers the structure your money sits inside: ISAs, pensions, general investment accounts, offshore bonds and trusts, and the order in which each is funded and later drawn down. It covers the interaction between them, which is where most of the value is won or lost. It also covers Inheritance Tax planning — what will be assessed, which reliefs apply, and what a gift made today is worth in seven years' time.
It does not cover the selection of the investments themselves; that is Investment Planning. Nor does it replace a solicitor drafting a will or a trust deed, or an accountant filing a return. We coordinate those people and make sure the documents agree with each other. We do not pretend to be them.
02 · What we examine
The schedule we work through with you.
Before any recommendation is made, these are the items we go through together. Nothing here is unusual; what is unusual is seeing all of it in one place.
- Wrappers in use
- Which of ISA, pension, general investment account, offshore bond and trust you already hold, and how much headroom remains in each this tax year. The ISA allowance is £20,000 a year and does not carry forward.
- Pension position
- Annual allowance of £60,000, tapered for higher earners toward a £10,000 floor; unused allowance carried forward from the previous three tax years; and whether the Money Purchase Annual Allowance of £10,000 has been triggered by a flexible withdrawal. We also look at where the pension sits in the drawdown order: from 6 April 2027, unused pension funds are expected to fall within the estate for Inheritance Tax purposes, which materially changes the order in which pensions should be drawn.
- Estate footprint
- Total estate measured against the nil-rate band of £325,000 and the residence nil-rate band of £175,000 — including the taper that withdraws the residence band above an estate of £2m, which catches more people than expect it.
- Gifts already made
- The date and value of every gift in the last seven years. Taper relief runs from the date of the gift, so the record matters as much as the intention.
- Income shape
- Where income arrives from, at what rate it is taxed, and which allowances go unused each year — the personal savings allowance, the £500 dividend allowance, and the £3,000 capital gains annual exempt amount.
- Ownership & beneficiaries
- Whose name each asset is in, how jointly-held assets pass on death, and whether pension death-benefit nominations actually say what you believe they say. They frequently do not.
- The people
- Who depends on this, who will administer it, and what you would rather they never had to deal with.
03 · How we work
The order the work happens in.
The sequence matters as much as the content. Doing these in a different order is how good intentions turn into expensive corrections.
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Establish the picture
Everything on one schedule: assets, wrappers, liabilities, ownership, beneficiaries and the gifts already made. Most clients have never seen it on a single page, and the first draft usually changes the conversation.
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Name the objective, in order
Income now, capital later, and what passes on. Where those three compete — and they always compete — you decide the order of priority. We make the trade-off visible; we do not make it for you.
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Test against the tax position
We model the position with no action taken, then the effect of each measure separately. If a step does not earn the complexity it adds, it does not go into the plan.
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Write it down in plain English
What we do this tax year, what deliberately waits, what would trigger an earlier review, and who else needs to be told. A plan nobody can read is not a plan.
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Review annually, and on events
Allowances reset every 6 April and Budgets move the goalposts. A marriage, a sale, a birth, a death or a move abroad triggers a review outside the calendar.
04 · A worked example
What this looks like in practice.
Covering a £480,000 liability without giving up control
A couple in their seventies with an estate of roughly £2.1m, most of it in the family home and a portfolio. They had assumed the residence nil-rate band applied to them in full; in fact it was tapering away almost entirely at that estate value. They were unwilling to gift capital they might yet need for care.
Rather than force that choice, we combined a documented programme of regular gifts out of surplus income — which falls outside the estate immediately, with no seven-year wait, provided the pattern and the surplus are properly evidenced — with a reducing-term life policy written in trust to cover the taper years on a single larger gift.
Composed from the kind of work we do, with details changed and combined so that no client is identifiable. It is an illustration of an approach, not a promise of a particular outcome.
05 · Risks & disclosure
The part that is usually set in small type.
It is set here at the same size as everything else, because it is the same size in real life.
All investments carry risk
All investments carry risk, including the possible loss of principal. The value of investments and any income from them can fall as well as rise, and you may get back less than you originally invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Tax treatment is personal, and it changes
Any tax treatment referred to depends on your individual circumstances and may be subject to change in the future. Everything on this page rests on tax law as it currently stands, and Inheritance Tax reliefs in particular are regularly reviewed at Budgets.
Gifts are not reversible
A gift that removes value from your estate also removes it from your control. We will always test a plan against the possibility that you need the money back, because you cannot ask for it back.
This page is general information, not advice
Nothing on this page constitutes personalised advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or proceed with any specific product, service or provider, and it does not take account of your particular financial situation, objectives or risk tolerance. Personalised advice is only provided following a full assessment of your circumstances and objectives. Advice should be sought before acting on any of the general information contained here.
Figures and allowances
Every allowance, threshold and rate on this page is stated for the UK 2026/27 tax year and is included to show how the work is done, not as advice you should act on. Thresholds change at Budgets, and tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances.
Regulatory information
Rai Wealth Management Ltd is registered as a private limited company in England and Wales under company number 12318787. Registered office: 6 Westholme Gardens, Ruislip, HA4 8QJ, United Kingdom. Rai Wealth Management Ltd works under a Contract for Services Agreement with Maystone Capital Ltd, which is directly authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under reference number 758412. Rai Wealth Management Ltd is not directly authorised and is not an Appointed Representative; all regulated activities are undertaken by Maystone Capital Ltd. Rai Wealth Management Ltd is the data controller of personal data you provide to us and is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under reference number ZA759299.
The full risk warnings and disclaimer apply to everything on this page.
Abhineet RaiFounder · Wealth Adviser · prepared this page
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