A RECORD number of families will be hit by inheritance tax this year with the Treasury expected to rake in an extra pounds 400 million according to figures released by the Government yesterday.
In total the Treasury is expected to receive pounds 3.89 billion from the tax - an increase of 10 per cent on the last financial year with the average family affected having to hand over pounds 111,000.
The figures released by HM Revenue & Customs came on the same day that separate Government data showed an increasing number of home owners paying stamp duty.
Government critics said the figures were proof that Gordon Brown's strategy of stealth taxes - introduced when he was in charge of the Treasury - showed no signs of slowing down now that he had moved to Number 10.
Ray Boulger at the mortgage broker John Charcol has started a petition to change stamp duty.
He said: "It's a classic stealth tax that has trapped an increasing number of people. It has to be changed to make it more sensible.''
The figures yesterday showed that 16,000 more home-buyers paid the tax in July. August and September than in the same period last year.
Last year. 59 per cent of all property transactions were liable for stamp duty according to the HM Revenue and Customs but in recent months 64 per cent paid as the Government benefited from ever-rising property prices.
Experts said that these figures underestimated the number of people paying the duty because they included land transactions and did not focus purely on residential property.
The record Inheritance Tax windfall for the Treasury this year will come despite a recent announcement by Alistair Darling the Chancellor that from next year couples would be allowed to merge their allowances - doubling it to pounds 600,000.
A Treasury spokesman said: "The changes made by the Chancellor in the Pre-Budget Report made the IHT system fairer.''
However the number of estates that have to pay the tax is expected to climb from 33,000 to 35,000 this year and the spokesman admitted that the Chancellor's initiative would not mean that significant numbers of bereaved families would be freed from paying the tax in future.
The forecast is also proof that the majority of couples already take advantage of existing loopholes to reduce the amount of inheritance tax they pay.
Even after a full year of the new allowances being in force the Treasury estimates that it will receive pounds 3.3 billion - the same amount it received in the year to March 2006.
Property experts say stamp duty is starting to distort the housing market by making it too expensive for people to move house or too difficult to get on to the housing ladder.
Corin Taylor of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "Not only has the Treasury failed to raise the thresholds they have also increased the rates paid on more expensive properties. It really has put the squeeze on middle-class families.''
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