Malcolm Finney examines the potentially difficult issue of how to treat joint bank accounts for inheritance tax purposes.
It may be a surprise to those not involved with taxation matters that jointly held property of whatever kind can create all sorts of problems which, for general tax purposes, have not all been resolved satisfactorily.
Perhaps the two most common forms of jointly held property are real estate and bank accounts. This article looks only at jointly held bank accounts.
The term ‘jointly held’ property refers to the legal title of the property concerned. It may be that the property concerned is held by more than two persons, but often only two owners are involved. Thus, for example, Mr and Mrs Smith may open a bank account in their joint names at ABC Bank; the bank account and any statements will show each of their.
