UNITED KINGDOM: Policy Victory! Death tax hike axed

Section: Members Highlights / WTA Blog
13 November 2019 | Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) / United Kingdom
United Kingdom

 

Thanks to the efforts of my team at the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s efforts, plans to increase probate fees up to £6,000 have been scrapped. On October 12th the Justice Secretary Robert Buckland announced that a proposed rise in probate fees had been abolished. This is another huge victory for the TPA and taxpayers. It is terrific news that the justice minister has put the final nail in the coffin for this hated stealth death tax.

In July TPA published The Cost of Death which highlighted the punitive effects the changes in probate fees would have on taxpayers. Covered exclusively in The Daily Telegraph the research paper showed the pernicious effects of death taxes across the UK. That was after earlier work in February to put pressure on the government, alongside the influential Guido Fawkes website.
The rise in probate fees would have ignored the fact that receiving an inheritance is often unexpected, slamming bereaved families on modest incomes who don’t have the resources to consult expensive solicitors. Increasing it by 28 times the current amount would have been nothing more than a revenue grab by the taxman.