Old soldiers - a new role

I was at a very jolly reunion lunch with some old comrades the other day when one of them said :- 'you know it is really stupid having these young lads getting their legs blown off by IEDs it should be us - the old and bold - we should be out there in Afghanistan leading the patrols because - frankly - our legs haven't got many years left of good use in them anyway.'  There was 100% agreement round the table that we would all volunteer for IED detection duties if the army took us up on our offer. Then it also occured to me that, for those of us with problems with Inheritance Tax (IHT) planning, this was also -potentially - one of the best ways of being able to pass on your estate free of  IHT, as even the grasping HMRC does not levy IHT on the families of those servicemen who die on operations.  Now some may think that volunteering to go to Afghanistan with an aim of being killed purely to avoid the iniquitous IHT is going it a bit far and I would agree with that but - if you are wounded in the service of your country then - when many years later you do die- your family can still get away without paying IHT providing your doctor certifies that 'you died of war wounds' and as no one can say for certain that your life was not curtailed - even slightly- by the trauma of being wounded HMRC never challenge such a case.

There was an MP at our lunch who had to leave early as 'Our Dave' was going to address a meeting of Conservative MP's so we told him to relay our offer to the 'powers that be' -  Oh and also relay that we  were all on side re hitting the tax relief on charitable giving those who had experience of seeing charities in operation in such places as Bosnia being loudest in their contempt for them,