Gosling's Grouse: How smart are your clients?

How clever are your clients? I am not asking if they have degrees or MBAs, more how sophisticated are they in terms of their understanding of financial products? I am guessing the answer is generally: "not very sophisticated".

I ask this question because I happened to be with an adviser recently who introduced me to one of his clients, mainly because we both have an interest in sport. In between putting the world to rights about the England football and rugby teams, the conversation inevitably progressed to the client’s financial affairs. At which point the adviser started to explain his solution to a few tax problems the client was having, or was likely to have, around CGT and IHT. The adviser explained using EIS, business property relief and one or two other tax-driven ideas. The only problem was the clie...