Poor IHT planning will waste £1.3bn

Taxpayers will waste almost £1.3 billion this year because of a failure to take steps to reduce potential inheritance tax (IHT) bills, it has been claimed.

IHT is among the top five taxes that consumers want scrapped yet just one in 10 people have done anything in the last year to reduce the amount they could leave their beneficiaries after death, according to the annual Tax Action report from unbiased.co.uk.

It said Britons will waste some 1.3bn this year because of poor IHT planning, with the freezing of the IHT threshold at 325,000 for four years taking many people's assets above the limit. The figure is second only to the 8.5bn wastage resulting from unclaimed tax credits.