Step calls for taxing rethink

The plight of the UK's 250,000 lay trustees has not been considered in the Inland Revenue's new self-assessment regime, the chair of The Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (Step) has claimed.

Geoffrey Shindler, trust partner at Halliwell Landau, said: "Lay trustees will be terrified when they see the amount of paperwork required. "

He said the pattern in the US could be repeated, in which 80 per cent of people doing self-assessment consulted professionals. But in the UK, unlike the US, the costs of this would not be tax-deductible.