In November HMRC announced further details of its Strengthened Reward Scheme, following similar initiatives overseas. The scheme offers significant financial rewards for individuals who report serious tax avoidance or evasion.
What was trailed, what was dropped, what was announced and what has happened since?
With the benefit of hindsight, the Autumn Budget 2025 now reads less like a single fiscal event and more like a prolonged period of policy signalling, retrenchment and quiet recalibration. In the months leading up to the Budget, a wide range of radical measures were trailed, many of which were ultimately abandoned before Budget Day itself. Others emerged only after the event, including material changes announced just before Christmas that fundamentally altered the inheritance tax landscape for farm and business owners.
The inheritance tax treatment of pension wealth has undergone a fundamental and far-reaching change.
Following the latest Budget, there has been a collective sense of relief that some of the more extreme measures trailed in advance — wealth taxes, exit charges and similar proposals — did not ultimately make their way into legislation. However, that relief should not be mistaken for a return to the status quo. While confidence was undoubtedly damaged by the pre-Budget whispering campaign and selective leaks, the reality is that one of the most significant changes to long-established estate planning assumptions has already been set in motion: pensions are no longer sacrosanct from inheritance tax.
