What is inheritance tax?

What amount of tax do we owe on my mother's estate is there capital gains, income and/or inheritance tax?

• My father left 100,000 uk pounds to me in his will - it was not paid out - my mother took a mortgage from me on her house for 100,000 pounds at 4%, Apparently the point of all this was to reduce liability to UK inheritance tax when my mother died. She would of course not pay any interest or principal during her life, and the mortgage would be paid out to me from her estate . My mothers will split the estate between my brother and sister - my share was the mortgage. When she became mentally unstable a power of attorney signed by my mother and her 3 children was obtained. The children became concerned that she would be taken advantage of (bogus work by contractor, bogus mortgage, new will in favor of care giver/housekeeper etc) and the power of attorney was used by the 3 of us to transfer the title of her house to me as clear title. The cost was put at 160,000pounds - the mortgage plus unpaid interest. 9 months later she died. At the time she died all the assets were in the hands of her children and there was no probate. The house was sold for 270,000 - the children agreed to split the proceeds and the rest of the estate evenly between us.- which meant I got 90,000 from the house sale ( less than if I had obtained the original mortgage amount). We naively assumed there were no tax implications as it was all our inheritance and we were protecting my mother from exploitation. I am a Canadian resident. The rest of the family all uk residents. Do I owe any tax if so how much and to whom?

• Answer:

  If I understand you correctly, you owned the house at the time of your mother's death. You then sold the house and split the proceeds with your siblings. As you are not resident in the UK,there would be no Capital Ganis Tax on the sale. You have given £90k to each sibling and this may have gift tax consequences in Canada (about which I know nothing), but we have no gift tax in the UK, so there is no liability on your siblings.