The number of taxpayers’ estates with Inheritance Tax on death rose to an estimated 41,000 in 2022/23 – up 24% increase on the previous year (33,000).
Hargreaves Lansdown, which analysed the figures from HMRC, said that IHT was “no longer a wealthy person’s tax.”
In the 2006-07 tax year there were an estimated 34,000 taxpayers incurring a liability. The introduction of transferable nil rate bands and the residential nil rate band initially cut the number of liabilities, but they have since continued to grow strongly.
Recent HMRC data shows that the amount of IHT collected and the number of taxpayers paying IHT are both rising.
Earlier this week it was revealed that the government’s inheritance tax (IHT) haul for the 2022/2023 tax year reached £7.1bn – £1bn higher than the record seen in the previous year. Estimates at the Spring Budget suggest that over the next five years IHT will bring in £38bn.
Helen Morrissey, head of retirement analysis at HL, said: “Inheritance tax (IHT) is no longer a wealthy person’s tax – the huge surge in HMRC figures shows it needs to be firmly on the radar of middle Britain.
“The number of people incurring IHT liabilities was already rising steeply in the early years of this century – helped in large part by house price increases.
“The introduction of transferable nil rate bands – where spouses could transfer unused nil rate bands between themselves – as well as the residential nil rate band did play a part in cutting the number of people falling foul of IHT for a few years before rebounding strongly.”
The current IHT threshold of £325,000 has been frozen until 2028. This may pull more people into the IHT net, HL predicts.
