HMRC on course for record Inheritance Tax figures

Inheritance tax delivered £6.3 billion to the Treasury between April 2023 and January 2024, according to figures from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). This was £400m more than for the same period the previous year.

The Government is now on course to secure record inheritance tax revenues of around £7.6 billion for the current tax year, a substantial increase on last year’s £7.1 billion – which was itself a record.

Laura Hayward, a tax partner at accountancy and business advisory firm Evelyn Partners, said that while this year’s bumper figures were bolstered by payments from a “relatively small number of large estates” thousands of “more modest inheritances” were also contributing.

Speaking to This is Money, Ms Hayward said: “Minor property downturns such as we’ve seen in the last year or so will do little to dent this trend. And even though the Covid effect on mortality, which was at one point increasing the overall inheritance tax take, must now have all-but played out, inheritance tax receipts continue to rise.”

The IHT nil-rate band, below which an estate pays no inheritance tax, has remained at £325,000 since 2010. Even so, only around 1 in 25 families currently pay IHT; partly because anything left to a spouse or civil partner is exempt from the tax.

People can also use “the residence nil-rate band” when passing on a main residence to their children. This increases the IHT allowance by £175,000, meaning parents or grandparents can leave £500,000 each to direct descendants before the tax applies.

Meanwhile, in the year to March 2022, HMRC also secured a record £326m following investigations into IHT underpayments. The Revenue continues to target this area, with a recent Freedom of Information Inquiry suggesting officials started 2,029 IHT investigations between April and November 2023.

Interest rates on unpaid inheritance tax is currently set at 7.75 per cent, meaning delays in payment can quickly accrue significant additional costs.