It was politically difficult to copy it directly, so instead announced that if a spouse dies, any unused IHT zero-rate bands can be transferred to the surviving spouse. This is now taken for granted.
By the time Mr Osborne became prime minister in 2010, economic conditions had changed and his Liberal Democrat coalition partners were calling for a policy of increasing individual benefits, leaving Mr Osborne no room to raise the IHT threshold. rice field.
Nevertheless, in April 2017 he introduced a housing zero rate zone, reflecting his promise that couples could bring home £1 million from IHT to their families.
Curiously, therefore, the two significant IHT bailouts we receive today arose out of direct political expediency rather than out of economic imperative. Osborne responded to Darling’s 2007 budget proposal by claiming Darling stole his own tax plan.
Nick Garland used this in a great front-page cartoon for The Telegraph the next day, portraying Brown and Darling as a robber who does just that. Osborne liked the cartoon so much that he had a copy of it framed and a few days later I saw it hanging on the wall of his office.
Since then, the IHT threshold has been frozen at £325,000, inevitably going in the opposite direction, with more families covered by IHT. For thirteen years from 2010, Major, Clarke and Osborne’s pledges have been ignored.
Nevertheless, as Osborne recognized, the IHT was a highly unpopular tax, and he proved it in 2007 by subverting Brown’s campaign plan.
With the Conservatives trailing again in the polls, the party now has an opportunity to announce the end of the IHT and provide the foundation for the Conservatives to win elections again.
