My experience
I have more than 40 years’ experience of acting for clients in succession planning and associated tax issues. I have become recognised as one of the country’s leading experts in inheritance tax and in the law and taxation of trusts.
In June 2023 I was shortlisted in STEP’s private client awards, as Trusted Adviser of the Year.
My whole career has been based in major towns and cities on the South Coast, but I have acted for clients from the Scilly Isles to North Yorkshire and from East Anglia to South Wales, and for landowners in countryside throughout England and Wales.
I am a specialist in:
- inheritance tax;
- capital gains tax;
- stamp duty land tax;
- all the tax, legal and administrative aspects of trusts and estates;
- the drafting and construction of legal documents related to trusts and wills;
- the variation of estates and trusts; and
- helping to create tax-efficient structures for succession to family businesses.
I have many years’ experience of acting as a professional trustee and executor.
I lecture regularly to other professionals.
I work with the owners of family businesses, both rural and urban, to plan for the next generation. A critical part of this is ensuring that inheritance tax reliefs, such as business and agricultural relief, are maximised. I also help to balance the interests of those who will carry on the family business with those who may not be directly involved.
I relish tackling complex (often inherited) family ownership structures, often comprising several trusts and/or several companies, and streamlining the arrangements to suit the modern world.
As well as being a solicitor, I am a member of CIOT (the Chartered Institute of Taxation) and so am a Chartered Tax Adviser (abbreviated to CTA).
I was a founder member of the Bournemouth branch of STEP (the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners). In 2017 I was elected to represent Southern England on the (international) Council of STEP. I am a member of STEP’s UK technical committee.
I led the team at my previous firm which successfully appealed to the Supreme Court in Routier v HMRC [2019] UKSC 43 – overturning HMRC’s denial of inheritance tax charity relief on a gift for charitable purposes to be carried out in Jersey.
Behind the scenes I advised the executors in Graham v HMRC [2018] UKFTT 306, which is, as yet the only reported case in which taxpayers obtained inheritance tax business relief for a holiday letting business. HMRC continue to argue that these businesses are mainly investment businesses, and so do not qualify for relief. Their argument relies on what I think is a badly worded tribunal judgement from 2013. The law has taken a wrong turning here, and it is my ambition to put this right.
Partly as a result of these two successes, the team at my previous firm was named by STEP as Private Client Legal Team of the Year for 2020.
Chambers High Net Worth legal guide and Legal 500 have both ranked me in their top class. Comments include:
- “He is an exceptional lawyer, he really is, he has this ability to cut through the taxes acts and just make very complex tax legislation make sense. He is wonderful with clients and a very nice person to work with.”
- “Anthony Nixon is outstanding. He has the intellect to pick through the knottiest of problems and come up with an easy to follow solution. He stands out for his exceptional technical expertise and the ability to apply solutions across the board – drawing out seemingly unconnected ideas to solve a problem.”
Publications
With my former colleague John Bunker, I am general editor of the Law Society’s Inheritance Tax Planning Handbook, published in December 2020, as well as the author of chapters in that book on: anti-avoidance; business and agricultural reliefs; and grossing up and similar calculations.
Articles include:
In Tax Adviser:
- January 2020 on the inheritance tax residence nil rate band
- January 2019 on the Graham case
- April 2018 on tax reliefs for charity
- January 2018 on inheritance tax business relief and investment businesses, with particular reference to a taxpayer victory against HMRC in a case concerning livery stables, known as Vigne
In Trusts and Estates Law & Tax Journal:
- January/February 2020, with my then colleague Clementine Burch, on the Routier case
Insights from Anthony Nixon
Articles
