New discretionary trust from Standard Life

Standard Life has launched a new discretionary trust to enhance its suite of estate planning solutions and to provide further flexibility in IHT planning.

The new discretionary trust will be available with Standard Life’s Loan Plan, Discounted Gift Plan and Gift Plan. It joins the absolute trust and the flexible trust which are currently available from Standard Life with these three plans.

The underlying investment choice remains the same, with either an onshore or international bond as the investment vehicles.

Trust details:

Absolute trust: beneficiaries are fixed at the outset and cannot be changed by the trustees.

Flexible trust: some beneficiaries have a right to any income arising, but the trustees have flexibility to change the beneficiaries later.

Discretionary trust: no beneficiary has a right to income or capital. The trustees decide who benefits from the trust.

Commenting on the launch of the new discretionary trust, Julie Hutchison, Estate Planning Specialist at UK Financial Services, Standard Life, said: “With the new trust, the trustees have complete discretion over who gets what and when. This increased flexibility will be attractive for many families because in today’s society, family circumstances can change from year to year.

“Trustees of a discretionary trust not only have discretion about choosing which beneficiary should receive any payment from the trust: they can decide how much is paid; how often payments are made; and what, if any, conditions to impose on the payment."

Julie concluded, “Since Budget 2006 and the big change to the inheritance tax rules, the financial services sector has become more familiar with, and accepting of, discretionary trusts and this launch gives people an increased choice of three types of trust with each of our three plans.”