Are investment bonds used to hide capital from councils?

dougz_2

dunstonh wrote: »

However, if you have justifiable other reasons why you should take out an investment bond (i.e tax efficiency) then it is not included in the means test.

Does that suggest the persons estate would have to be above IHT threshold, and/or their income HRT, or is there some other tax it would be considered a valid motivation to be minimising?

You also need to take it out before the means test in question is known to be required or foreseeable. (its not just the care means test but pension credit as well and most other means tests).

What sort of things would suggest it was "foreseeable" and on what timescale? eg. would lack of sufficient pension contributions be seen as an indicator of foreseeable pension credit means test in later life? If so isn't that a catch 22?