An inheritance tax raid to “redistribute” wealth is a possibility for a Labour government if it gets into power, a leaked recording of a shadow frontbencher suggests.
Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, told a public meeting funds from the punitive levy should be used to address “intergenerational inequality.”
In the leaked recording, the contents of which were first reported by the Daily Telegraph, Jones – who will be responsible for public expenditure if Labour wins the election as widely expected – said there is a “bulk coming through the system of huge amounts of inherited wealth.”
The promised tax hike comes in direct contrast to the Reform Party economic agenda which sees tax cuts as the way to stimulate the economy rather than to act to punish people who are successful.
Inheritance tax is currently charged at 40 percent on the value of estates above £325,000.
At the meeting in Bristol in March, Jones reportedly said:
We’ve had a bit of a debate (on inheritance tax) in Westminster because there were some plans to abolish it… we didn’t think that was the right thing to do, because there was going to be this kind of bulk coming through the system of huge amounts of inherited wealth in our country, largely off the back of housing asset values.
For the intergenerational inequality point, we think it’s important that inheritance tax remains because it does allow you to get some of that value back in, to be able to redistribute across generations.
Up to six percent of estates are set to be subject to the levy by the end of the next Parliament.
Senior Tories said the remarks showed the “cat’s out of the bag” when it comes to the party’s plans on taxes, the Daily Mail reports.