Around 20,000 families will pay £95,000 more in tax by 2019 as Osborne freezes inheritance threshold,
Thousands more families will be dragged into the 40 per cent inheritance tax (IHT) band in the coming years after Chancellor George Osborne decided to freeze the tax-free £325,000 threshold until 2019. The freeze - which reverses a previous Conservative policy to dramatically increase the threshold - means many more estates will become subject to the tax as asset prices, and property prices in particular, continue to rise. When someone dies, IHT is paid on any amount over £325,000 they leave behind - so someone with assets worth £500,000 would pay 40 per cent on £175,000 (£70,000). Enlarge Tax trap: The IHT threshold has been the same since 2009 - if it had increased in line with RPI it would be around £358,000 for the 2013 tax year The level from which the tax is paid has been the subject of much anger from middle-earners who complain that rapid property price rises in the past two decades have dramatically increased the value of estates. They say that those with relativel