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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

Plan now to spare family paying inheritance tax

A massive crackdown on inheritance tax evasion has been launched by HM Revenue & Customs as fears grow that the Coalition wants to squeeze more cash from ordinary families. Experts say early action by families to minimise IHT is vital and warn the later they leave it, the fewer options there are. The taxman is increasingly investigating people’s tax affairs after death to make sure they have kept strictly to the IHT rules. The tough line follows last month’s announcement by the Chancellor that the £325,000 IHT threshold – above which estates are taxed at 40 per cent – will be frozen for six more years to 2019. George Osborne, who in 2007 promised that he would ‘take the family home out of inheritance tax’ by increasing the IHT threshold to £1 million, was accused of ‘betraying ordinary families’. Legacy: Patricia Gliddon, 90, with her youngest great-grandchild Ella Gliddon, ten months, has limited her IHT liability Opponents of IHT, one of the most controversial and hated o

JEFF PRESTRIDGE: Osborne, scrap these two vote losers

George Osborne has much soul-searching ahead of him in  the run-up to his  Autumn Statement on December 5. Hopefully, the Chancellor will have the strength of character to execute U-turns on two policies that as they stand are set to  alienate more than 1.5 million people (many of them natural Tory voters) from the Conservative Party. The first is the new tax on children, designed to claw back benefit for those with an income  of £50,000 or more. I’ve said it many times before,  but I will repeat myself in case the message hasn’t quite got through  to Number 11. The tax is wrong, on two levels. First, it is wickedly unfair, hitting households where one parent earns above £50,000 while ignoring those where the overall household  income tops £50,000 but where no individual earner is earning more than that sum to trigger the tax. Second, it is a crass, clumsy and ill-thought attempt to save money that will cause headaches for thousands of households as they grapple for the first time wit

Top rate tax cut will save highest earners £100,000 a year, not £40,0

Britain's highest earners will benefit to the tune of more than £100,000-a-year from George Osborne's 5p cut to the top rate of tax, which will come down from 50p to 45p in April. Labour critics had originally balked at the fact it would save some 8,000 of the richest people in the country £40,000 a year. But leader Ed Miliband will claim in figures being published today that those earning more than £1million stand to benefit by an average of £107,500 as a result of the changes. Labour leader Ed Miliband: Government decided to stand up for the 'wrong people' The claim comes ahead of next week's autumn statement on the economy by the Chancellor. Mr Miliband is expected to tell factory workers today that they were paying the price for the Government's decision to stand up for the 'wrong people'. 'David Cameron and George Osborne believe the only way to persuade millionaires to work harder is to give them more money. 'But they also seem

'Slash top income tax rate to boost investment in UK' - Boris Johnson

A cut to the top 45 per cent rate of income tax should be considered in order to encourage more foreign investment in the capital, London mayor Boris Johnson suggested today. On his final day of a tour in India, Johnson praised the country for having a more attractive regime for entrepreneurs. He said Chancellor George Osborne should 'brood' on whether the top rate of tax should be cut to something like the 30 per cent enjoyed by the Mumbai businessmen he was addressing. They asked the mayor whether London could be made more attractive to foreign investors through less regulation, to which Mr Johnson replied that the tax regime 'needed to be looked at'. Tax tips: London Mayor Boris Johnson addresses a gathering of Indian businessmen Speaking at the Bombay Stock Exchange on the final day of his trip, Mr Johnson said: 'You've got tax rates here of only 30 per cent - a point George Osborne might like to brood on. 'It's 10 per cent for freelance i

'Slash top income tax rate to boost investment in UK' - Boris Johnson

A cut to the top 45 per cent rate of income tax should be considered in order to encourage more foreign investment in the capital, London mayor Boris Johnson suggested today. On his final day of a tour in India, Johnson praised the country for having a more attractive regime for entrepreneurs. He said Chancellor George Osborne should 'brood' on whether the top rate of tax should be cut to something like the 30 per cent enjoyed by the Mumbai businessmen he was addressing. They asked the mayor whether London could be made more attractive to foreign investors through less regulation, to which Mr Johnson replied that the tax regime 'needed to be looked at'. Tax tips: London Mayor Boris Johnson addresses a gathering of Indian businessmen Speaking at the Bombay Stock Exchange on the final day of his trip, Mr Johnson said: 'You've got tax rates here of only 30 per cent - a point George Osborne might like to brood on. 'It's 10 per cent for freelance i

30 SECOND GUIDE: TAX COLLECTOR

The Daily Mail City team explains why George Osborne is pumping more money into Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs One of life’s two certainties? Yes, if the people who work at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs get their way. They are responsible for overseeing the money flowing into government coffers and, if necessary, chasing it down from people or corporations who are unwilling to part with it. Taxing times: The Treasury is suffering a £32billion loss of revenue due to uncollected tax Don’t I pay enough? Quite possibly. But we’re told there aren’t enough collectors and they aren’t funded well enough. This is at the core of the problems with the UK’s £32billion tax gap. That is why George Osborne yesterday proposed to give HMRC an extra £154million.   More... Taxman has spent too long targeting small firms when the biggest tax dodgers are the multi-national giants How big is the problem? In 2005 some 97,073 people worked at HMRC, but by 2010 that had fallen to 66,992