The IHT threshold frozen until 2031 is no longer a temporary inconvenience: it is a structural feature of the UK tax landscape, and for unmarried couples with meaningful assets it is forcing a deeply personal question about whether financial necessity should drive them to the altar. The debate has been given fresh energy by Ricky Gervais, who was quoted in the national press saying he was ‘going to have to get married’ to his long-term partner Jane Fallon to avoid a hefty inheritance tax bill.
Gervais and Fallon have been together since 1982. In a recent interview, Gervais, estimated to have a net worth of around £140m, was asked directly whether he would marry Fallon, herself worth approximately £1.3m, for tax reasons. He replied: ‘That would be the reason I marry. We haven’t done it yet. But if it wasn’t for [tax], why?’ He added: ‘It’s mad. How more married can you be? We share all our money, we’ve been living together for 40 years. Some marriages don’t last a year.’
Why the IHT Threshold Frozen Until 2031 Changes the Calculus
The nil rate band has stood at £325,000 since 6 April 2009. According to MP Estate Planning, that band is now confirmed frozen until at least April 2031. The GOV.UK inheritance tax thresholds page confirms that the Finance Act 2025 further amended Finance Act 2021 to maintain the thresholds up to and including the 2029 to 2030 tax year. With the average UK house price currently around £375,000, a homeowning individual can already breach the nil rate band on property alone, before any savings, pension assets or investments are counted.
For a couple in the Gervais and Fallon position, the numbers are stark. Their Hampstead property alone is thought to be worth £10m. Without the spousal exemption that marriage provides, the surviving partner faces a potential 40% charge on everything above the threshold. Over a 44-year relationship, the couple have built a shared financial life; the tax system, however, does not recognise that relationship until a marriage certificate exists.
Compounding the pressure is the government’s decision, announced in the 2024 Budget, to bring unused defined contribution pension pots into the scope of inheritance tax from April 2027. For anyone who has been using a pension as an estate planning vehicle, that change alone requires a fundamental review of their withdrawal strategy and their overall asset allocation. Add an unmarried status and the exposure grows further.
A Broader Problem Than Wealth Alone
It would be a mistake to view this purely as a concern for high-net-worth households. With the nil rate band frozen at £325,000 and house prices at current levels, any couple who own their home outright and have modest additional savings could find their estate liable to some degree of inheritance tax. The threshold has not kept pace with asset price inflation across more than fifteen years, which means the tax now reaches further down the wealth distribution than its architects originally intended.
The Treasury collected £8 billion in IHT receipts in the last recorded year, representing around 1% of total government revenue. That combination, a modest share of total receipts but an absolute figure the Treasury will be reluctant to reduce, makes any meaningful threshold increase politically difficult. A rise to £1m, which would remove the majority of ordinary homeowners from exposure, would cost far more than the political will currently exists to concede.
For couples assessing their own position, the analysis is straightforward in principle if uncomfortable in practice. Where one partner holds substantially more wealth than the other, the spousal exemption is the single most powerful IHT mitigation available, and it costs nothing beyond the willingness to formalise a commitment that, in many cases, already exists in every other sense. For someone in the accumulation phase with decades ahead, the horizon is long enough to plan around other structures. For someone approaching or already in drawdown, with assets above the threshold and an unmarried partner, the calculus becomes more pressing.
The Finance Act 2025 confirmation that thresholds will hold through to 2029 to 2030 removes any near-term prospect of legislative relief. Couples who have deferred the decision should factor that into their planning conversations now.
