Inheritance tax (IHT) receipts reached £5.2bn in the first seven months of the 2025/26 tax year, £200m higher than the same period last year, according to new HMRC data.
The figures continue a long-term upward trend and come just days before the Autumn Budget, increasing scrutiny of how frozen thresholds and rule changes are bringing more estates into the IHT net.
Nicholas Hyett, investment manager at Wealth Club, said: “The “hokey-cokey” Budget is just days away, and recent IHT history provides the blueprint we expect the chancellor to follow.
IHT’s main nil-rate threshold has been frozen at £325,000 since 2009 (had it increased in line with inflation it would now be nearly £525,000). That, according to Hyett, can squeeze an extra £80,000 from an estate without the government having to “raise” taxes at all.
Hyatt believes the chancellor is set to repeat the trick with various other tax allowances – including freezing income tax thresholds into next decade.
He said: “Targeted IHT reliefs have come under attack in recent years – including business relief, agricultural relief and the alternative investment market. All of these changes are sold as closing loopholes and targeting the wealthy without effecting “working people”, never mind that they have been damaging for small businesses, family farms and UK capital markets.
“We expect the chancellor to make a song and dance about targeting “special interests” again in the budget through salary sacrifice and some form of “mansion tax” – though in practice tinkering around the edges like this has profound knock-on effects, not least on activity in the housing market.”
Finally there’s pensions. Stripped of IHT relief last time round and now facing national insurance on contributions if salary sacrifice is targeted – pensions are the ultimate forbidden fruit for any chancellor.
Hyatt continued: “There may be a final grab for more IHT revenues this time round, through attacks on gifting rules. The current seven year rule, after which gifts are free from IHT, could be extended or there could be a move to cap gifts out of surplus income (which are currently free from inheritance tax straight away).
“The reality though is that the government is close to the bottom of the barrel where IHT is concerned. And in that too IHT is foretelling the fate of wider tax policy. Next year the government is going to find it can’t get any further with tinkering and threshold freezes. If it wants to raise more money it’s going to have to front up to the voter and visibly raise taxes – it’s just a shame there’s no death duty on political administrations, because the Treasury would be in for a windfall.”
Rachael Griffin, tax and financial planning expert at Quilter, said the latest increase in inheritance tax reflected “a decade of frozen thresholds and rising house prices”, which has left “more people who may not feel hugely wealthy” exposed to the tax.
According to Griffin, receipts are “only set to accelerate once pensions become liable to IHT from 2027”, arguing the change will “turbocharge future receipts and draw significantly more households into scope”.
