Father’s trust

I read with interest the responses to Mother’s trust.

The responses noted that the mother would be entitled to recover any tax she has paid (at her top marginal rate) from the trustees of the bare trust she has set up for her daughter.

I have a client in a broadly similar situation and the parent (in our case the father) initially decided not to recover the tax effectively from his children.

However a former adviser said that this would in itself create a potentially exempt transfer (PET) which would then trigger an inheritance tax charge on his death (or at least increase the tax payable on his death).

As a result the tax is routinely recovered from the bare trust.

My questions are as follows.

• Was the advice given to the father correct?
• Can family maintenance (or other defences) apply...