IHT for surviving spouse

UncleGeee

I'm trying to understand what IHT liability my mother's estate will have when she passes.
My father passed in 2009, leaving 100% of his estate to my mother.
My mother still lives in the family home (value about £550k) and currently has total assets of approx £1.5 million including house.
So I believe the combined nil-rate bands are £325k + £325k = £650k.
Her Residence Nil-Rate Band (RNRB) is £175k, but does she also get another £175k RNRB for him as well ?
In other words is her total combined IHT allowance £825k (so IHT due would be £270k) or is it £1 million (so IHT due would be £200k) ?
Forgive me for asking a question which is probably so simple for most of you, but I want to check I've understood this 100% correctly.

theoretica

I believe IHT allowance will be £1 million https://www.gov.uk/guidance/inheritance-tax-transfer-of-threshold

Keep_pedalling

Under current rules she can leave £1M tax free. If she is in good health and has a good chance of living another 7 years now would be a good time to look at giving away some of her excess wealth. It risks nothing and could save a chunk of that £200k tax.

SeniorSam

If your Mother does not wish to gift capital at this time, another consideration could be gifting into a Trust. The Trustees could be herself and her children if old enough, thereby maintaining control and management in the family. The beneficiaries could be the children, but a Discretionary Trust during it's lifetime, loans could be given out to help support your Mother and loans are better than gifts or income to help reduce  future liability and tax. 

At present, after tax allowances, there would be a tax liability of approximately £200,000 as mentioned, but that may well increase to a larger sum if there are investments that grow. If the growth were within a Trust, then it is not growing in her estate.

Also, if she is in reasonably good health, there is a possibility of taking out a decreasing TERM Assurance life policy for the 7 years that needs to be covered on the gift into Trust.  Depending on what the capital in Trust is invested in will determine the tax liability within the Trust, but certain investments will not produce tax liability.

There are so many avenues to research if only you can obtain the right information and ensure that you understand how they works before making any commitment and be careful of costs as there are some who try and take advantage of certain situations so de check with more than one avenue.