Trusts for disabled people

Trusts are often a mystery to the man or woman in the street and to tax authorities they are vehicles used by the rich to protect themselves from a variety of taxes. So everything surrounding trusts seems to be complicated and they have a language and jargon of their own.

This is a shame as trusts have existed for hundreds of years and have many legitimate and useful purposes. A trust is a relationship where property (in its widest sense) is managed by one person for the benefit of another.

In the world of disability a trust can be a useful structure to enable one or more people to manage funds on behalf of a person with a disability where it is appropriate to do so.

The purpose of the sections that follow are to set out, briefly, what trusts are and for what purposes they are used, the tax charges to which trustees are subject, and in particular the tax reliefs for certain trusts for people with certain disabilities.