At last year`s Conservative party conference, George Osborne the shadow Chancellor announced that the next Conservative government would raise the IHT threshold for individuals to £1,000,000.00.
Consequently,the Labour government introduced the new transferable nil-rate band so that survivors of a marriage or civil partnership could utilise up to the full value of two nil-rate bands which in the current tax year equates to up to £624,000.00.
Mr Osborne has now clarified his proposals and confirmed that any new Conservative governemnt would continue to allow the transferable nil-rate band to continue thus leading to a potential total nil-rate band available to survivors of a marriage or civil partnership of up to £2,000,000.00. Evidently, the effect of such a move would be to leave IHT as a tax on the wealthy and remove the tax as a political "hot potato" for "middle England".
There is some more information and interesting comments at the Telegraph.
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