UK's wealthiest paying half IHT rate of smaller estates - Canada Life

'Deep inconsistencies'

Sophie King
clock • 2 min read

Some of the UK's largest estates are paying half the effective inheritance tax (IHT) rate of estates a third their size, a freedom of information (FOI) request has revealed.

The FOI request, which Canada Life made of HM Revenue & Customs, suggested estates worth £10m or more paid an average of 10% IHT - and thus half the average rate of 20% paid by estates worth between £2m and £3m. Data published for the 2015/16 tax year meanwhile showed estates worth between £6m and £7m had the highest average effective IHT tax rate at 21%. According to Canada Life, these figures show "great inconsistencies" in the way different assets are taxed for inheritance purposes, which leads to similarly sized estates paying "wildly different" rates of tax. Half of over-45s unaw...

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