Kemi Badenoch wants to scrap the hated ‘death tax’.
The Tory leader confirmed she was looking at how to ditch inheritance tax to relieve the burden that falls heavily on middle-class families.
Amid rows about billionaires donating to political parties, Mrs Badenoch said she wanted to help ‘ordinary families build generational wealth’, and there are growing expectations that she will announce the policy during her speech to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham next month.
New Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith has said that inheritance tax would be his first choice if he could get rid of any levy.
It would follow Mrs Badenoch’s pledge to abolish stamp duty if she becomes prime minister – a policy which electrified last year’s party conference and helped revive both the party and her leadership.
Mrs Badenoch last night revealed that she had asked her team to find ‘fiscally responsible ways’ to tackle the ‘burden’ of the levy on estates, while taking aim at Reform UK and its billionaire crypto backers.
‘The people caught by inheritance tax are mostly home-owning middle-class families due to house price inflation, diligent savers, and small-business owners,’ she said. ‘The super-wealthy can afford trusts and sophisticated tax planning or move abroad.’
Mrs Badenoch seized on a claim made by Reform’s Robert Jenrick that it would be ‘morally wrong’ to prioritise abolishing inheritance tax ahead of taking low earners out of paying income tax, marking a major policy divide between the two parties on the Right.
Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch has revealed she wants to scrap the hated ‘death tax’ (She is pictured outside The British Museum last week)
Mrs Badenoch seized on a claim made by Reform’s Robert Jenrick (pictured on Monday) that it would be ‘morally wrong’ to prioritise abolishing inheritance tax
In the first official confirmation that the move is being considered after it was first revealed by The Mail on Sunday, she wrote on social media: ‘Reform says abolishing inheritance tax is “morally wrong”.
‘I think it is morally wrong to punish people for doing the right thing – spending a lifetime working, saving, building up a business or a home to pass on to the next generation.’
She admitted that Conservative supporters will ‘sometimes include wealthy people’ but said her party was on the side of millions who have ‘paid their dues’ and want what they have built up to benefit their children or communities.
‘We are on their side,’ she said, adding: ‘But we won’t make any announcement till there’s a clear plan.’
Mrs Badenoch also took a swipe at Reform donors including Christopher Harborne, one of the two cryptocurrency tycoons whose record-breaking £72million donations are at the centre of a growing row over political funding.
She claimed that they ‘don’t need to worry about ordinary inheritance tax planning, because they keep money in crypto or out of the country’.
Last night her former Tory leadership rival Mr Jenrick hit back, saying: ‘We can all agree inheritance tax is a bad tax. But the question is, when you have to choose what to cut first, given the appalling state of the public finances, what do you pick?
‘You are choosing to help the wealthiest 5 per cent, while we want to raise the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000 to benefit 97 per cent of workers instead.’
Although Andy Burnham has ruled out going to the country early, many in Westminster believe he will do so to free himself from Keir Starmer’s manifesto pledges and red lines on tax.
He is known to favour a different kind of ‘death tax’, in the form of a potential 10 per cent levy payable by the majority of households on death to fund his plans for social care.
READ MORE: ALEX BRUMMER: Come on Kemi, ditch monstrous inheritance tax – and unleash a new era of enterprise!
