Anne Robinson: I’ve given £50m fortune to my family to avoid it all going to the taxman
FORMER Weakest Link star Anne Robinson says she has given most of her £50million fortune to her family to avoid inheritance tax.
The veteran TV presenter, 79, has “spread” her assets among her children and grandchildren to stop it going to the “taxman”.
Her family must now hope she survives for at least seven years or they will have to pay death duties on the early inheritance she has gifted.
Inheritance tax is charged at 40% on a person’s estate over the value of £325,000, although the threshold amount rises to £500,000 if the asset being taxed is the family home.
Gifts of unlimited value can avoid IHT if the donor survives for at least seven years and receives no benefit of any kind in return.
The broadcaster, who has been dating the Queen’s former husband Andrew Parker Bowles for the last year, is mother to Emma Wilson, 43, from her marriage to the late journalist Charles Wilson and has two grandchildren Hudson, 14, and Parker, 13.
She said: “I’ve given it all away. I don’t want the taxman to have it.
“I’ve spread it about quite a lot, to the children. They may as well enjoy it now.”
Anne added that she has “genuinely no idea” if she is worth £50million, but admitted she doesn’t “want for much” and “can’t think there’s anything I really want except my good health and the family happiness.” The former columnist said she has been told she has “the body of someone in their 60s”, does not “carry weight” and feels in good health.
Anne told Saga magazine: “I run about two miles, one minute on, one minute off, nothing that harms my joints. I do Pilates. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke and I really don’t eat crap food.”
The former Points of View host lives in a Grade II-listed converted 18th-century barn in the Cotswolds and has homes in New York city and The Hamptons, the exclusive seaside resort in Long Island.
She recently admitted to dating Camilla’s former husband, who she met during a lunch with mutual friends over a year ago.
Anne said it took her “a long time” to get involved with someone again after the breakdown of her second marriage to John Penrose in 2007.
But she added that her new beau Andrew, 84, was “worth the risk” and said: “I’d been out of the game for so long. And also I don’t drink. If you don’t drink you’re not as reckless are you? I’ve only just thought of that, but I think it’s probably true.”