Inheritance Tax (tax on death) was traditionally considered to be a tax on the wealthy.

However, with the average price of a home in the South East now exceeding £325,000, this ‘rich’ tax is now being brought to the ordinary bereaved taxpayers.

In essence, a 40% tax charge is levied on the value of a deceased’s estate over £325,000. This threshold has been frozen since April 2009 and any increase has been ruled out until at least 2018. The Conservatives pledged to increase the threshold to £1m back in 2010 but this was blocked by the Lib Dems.

It is expected that the revenue raised by this tax will increase from £3.5bn last year to £5.8bn by the end of the decade.

I think that Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the TaxPayers Alliance group sums it up perfectly, "The Treasury is using fiscal drag as an increasingly painful method of raising extra revenue. It is stealthy and fundamentally dishonest. Hardworking people should be rewarded, not treated as cash cows to be milked." 

Personally, I have always seen Inheritance Tax as a double taxation on assets. Basically, the assets are acquired from income which has been taxed and then upon death, the Government want an additional slice of tax. I fail to understand how this can be remotely considered as fair.

Given the existing threshold and the increase in property values, we are seeing more situations where the surviving family are being forced to sell the assets to settle the tax liability. The raising of the threshold to £1m would certainly alleviate the issue and would revert the tax back to whom it was intended.