Keep It In The Family
How To Protect Your Assets and Pass Wealth To Loved Ones
A practical, plain-English guide for UK families who want to reduce inheritance tax, protect their assets, and ensure their wealth passes efficiently to the people they love — not to HMRC.
Why This Book Matters
Every year, thousands of UK families lose a significant portion of their estate to inheritance tax — often because they simply didn't know what options were available to them. With the right planning, much of this can be legally and legitimately reduced or avoided altogether.
Written by Harish Shah FCA — a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants with over 40 years of experience — this book cuts through the complexity and gives you a clear, actionable roadmap for protecting your family's financial future.
Inheritance Tax Rate on estates above the threshold
Standard nil-rate band per individual (2026)
Years of estate planning expertise behind this guide
Chapter by Chapter
How Inheritance Tax Works
Understand the rules, thresholds, and rates that determine how much of your estate could be taxed — and what triggers a liability.
The Importance of a Valid Will
Why a well-drafted will is the foundation of any estate plan, and the costly mistakes that arise when one is absent or poorly written.
Gifting Strategies
How to use annual exemptions, potentially exempt transfers, and other gifting rules to reduce your taxable estate during your lifetime.
Using Pensions and Trusts
How pensions can sit outside your estate, and how trusts can protect assets while keeping them out of the IHT net.
Family Investment Companies
A powerful structure for business owners and high-net-worth families to retain control while transferring wealth tax-efficiently.
Property and Wealth Transfer
Strategies for passing on property — including the residence nil-rate band, equity release, and inter-generational planning.
Care Home Fee Planning
How to protect your assets from being depleted by care costs, and what the rules say about deliberate deprivation.
Life Insurance for Tax Coverage
Using whole-of-life policies written in trust to provide a tax-free lump sum that covers your IHT liability on death.
Deed of Variation
How beneficiaries can redirect an inheritance after death to achieve a better tax outcome for the whole family.
Wealth Protection Scorecard
A practical self-assessment tool to help you identify gaps in your current plan and prioritise the actions that matter most.
Who Is This Book For?
- ✓Homeowners with property worth over £325,000
- ✓Business owners planning for succession
- ✓Parents who want to pass wealth to children or grandchildren
- ✓Anyone with savings, investments, or pension pots
- ✓Executors and trustees managing an estate
- ✓Anyone who has never reviewed their estate plan
Get the Wealth Protection Scorecard — free
Enter your full name and email, and we'll send you the Scorecard as a PDF: a ten-minute self-assessment that shows where your estate is exposed.
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 154
- ISBN
- 979-8-199851-28-2
- Price
- £19.99
- Publication date
- 11 July 2026
- Dimensions
- 13.97 x 0.89 x 21.59 cm
Your family, or HMRC?
Every year you wait, options close. Read the book this weekend — or talk it through with Harish directly, free of charge.