Inheritance tax receipts fall. Does this make a wealth tax more likely?

Inheritance tax (IHT) seems to worry far more people than are ever likely to pay it. The latest stats reveal why the Government and HMRC may be planning to switch to a wealth tax instead.

The most recent figures available tell us that fewer than 4% of UK deaths resulted in a charge to IHT. And that HMRC received only a little over £5 billion inheritance tax in 2019/20.

Earlier this year an all-party parliamentary group proposed the wholesale reform of IHT and intergenerational fairness. Their main recommendation was to replace IHT with a flat-rate gift tax payable both on lifetime and death transfers. As ever such proposals are easier to accept in theory than they would ever be to legislate.

And let no one assume that a wealth tax would be easy to apply and charge by reference to shares, properties and other assets whose values are ever changing.
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