What you wanted to find out about tax in 2025: The prime questions answered by our skilled HEATHER ROGERS

Heather Rogers, founder and owner of Aston Accountancy, is This is Money’s resident tax expert.

She has fielded questions about accidental landlords, setting up a trust for a vulnerable adult, and avoiding inheritance tax if you own a listed building this year – find her answers to all these tax conundrums here.

Keep your tax questions coming, by scrolling down to find out Heather’s contact details. And read about three of her top columns from 2025 below.

Many people who think they might be liable for inheritance tax consider making gifts while they are alive, to avoid putting this burden on their loved ones.

The inclusion of pensions in inheritance tax calculations from spring 2027 has prompted more people to rearrange their financial affairs to minimise the potential bill.

Scroll down to find out how to ask Heather Rogers your tax question

As a reminder, you will need to be worth at least £325,000 – or £650,000 for a couple – when you die for your assets to face inheritance tax. 

Allowances for passing on a property to direct descendants bumps up those figures to £500,000 and £1million respectively. But a hefty 40 per cent is levied on assets worth more than those thresholds.

While lifetime gifting is common, giving away your home that you still live in comes with serious pitfalls that deter most people from this course of action.

Heather lays out the tax and legal complications in this column, and warns that if you might need your care bills to be picked up by your local authority in future, that poses other financial dangers.

Our guide to avoiding inheritance tax legally is here.

A Government U-turn reinstated the Winter Fuel Payment for most pensioners this year, but there is a key tax threshold to be aware of from now on (unless the rules are changed again for next year).

Unless you opt out altogether, the WFP is issued to pensioners in November and December, but it will be clawed back from individuals whose taxable income is over £35,000.

‘This will be done through self-assessment if you fill in a self-assessment tax return, or through your tax code, or via a direct bill from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs,’ says Heather.

She explains what counts as taxable income and how payments are made when one member of a household has income above the threshold and another below it.

‘Do add up all your pensions, but do not then deduct your tax allowances from this figure when you are working out if you are above or below the £35,000 income limit,’ says Heather.

‘Ignore text messages pretending to be from the Department for Work and Pensions about making a claim for WFP. There are unfortunately widespread scams trying to harvest personal information from people.’

People who are getting divorced need to be aware of capital gains tax rules, and this reader’s case was complicated by joint ownership of a second property abroad.

‘Transfers between married couples or those in civil partnerships are normally done on a ‘no gain/no loss’ principle and therefore no CGT arises. 

However, once you are legally separated, then this rule changes,’ says Heather.

She explains how you can still get indefinite time to transfer assets tax free, but this is not straightforward. 

Here, Heather gives a rundown on how to do this if you are splitting with your spouse, and the traps you must avoid.