Owner risk in 2026 so far, a £2.5m relief cap and US$300m of prepaid flights

From 6 April 2026 full inheritance tax relief on UK farms and family businesses covers only the first £2.5m of qualifying property in an estate, with 50 per cent relief above that, under the government’s reform of agricultural and business property relief, set out by HMRC. Any unused allowance can pass to a surviving spouse or civil partner, and a separate £2.5m allowance applies to such property held in trusts.

It was one of several steps this year in which the terms behind an asset, not its market price, decided what an owner kept, paid or risked.

In a ruling reported on 16 January, the Paris court of appeal ordered Galerie Kraemer to repay €2.8m for a Chinese vase over doubts about its 18th-century dating, according to The Art Newspaper. The collector had bought it in 2012, and investigators say it sold for €815 in Brazil about 20 years before.

On 8 June Guernsey’s Policy & Resources Committee published a tax package with a 3 per cent goods and services tax from 2028, which needs States approval. It put the additional revenue at about £39m a year, and updated modelling on 22 September put it at about £36m net. On 27 February the committee had opened a consultation on letting journalists and financial-crime NGOs apply, case by case through the registry, for access to who owns Guernsey companies.

The Court of Justice of the European Union said in a ruling reported on 9 June that control under EU sanctions covers all forms of power or influence over assets, and that ownership by a beneficiary or settlor can be inferred from needlessly complex legal structures. Sailing Yacht A, which Italian authorities valued at about US$611m when they seized it, stays seized. On 11 June the Frankfurt Administrative Court found that German authorities had not proved who owns Dilbar, held at Lürssen’s yard since April 2022, and ordered the government to declare that the yard has no duty to treat her as frozen.

OneFlight, a private jet broker, said on 15 September it was pausing all flights for 30 days. Private Jet Card Comparisons reported on 23 September that it had built up about US$300m in deferred revenue and, like most programmes, did not escrow (hold with a third party, apart from the operator) the prepaid funds.

On 30 June a lawyer writing in Superyacht News described Palma customs refusing temporary admission, a regime that lets a non-EU yacht sail in EU waters free of import duties and VAT for up to 18 months, to a British owner resident in the UK because he held a Spanish golden visa. Customs sealed the vessel and issued a VAT assessment on the hull.