HMRC have released figures which show it’s highest recorded revenues from Inheritance Tax.
The spike in Coronavirus deaths at the start of the year and probate delays saw the single largest month ever in July at £571 million. Receipts for April 2021 to July 2021 are £2.1 billion, which is £0.5 billion higher than in the same period a year earlier.
Alongside the frenzied housing market, which in June saw the end of the first stage of the tapering of the Stamp Duty Land Tax holiday on properties up to £500,000, Treasury tax receipts hit £67.3 billion, the highest since January.
Receipts from property purchases hit £1.309 billion in July, the highest month on record and higher than the £1.196 billion taken in March, the original date on which the SDLT holiday was due to end.
Commenting on the figures released by HMRC Sarah Coles, personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown said:
“The pandemic has pushed inheritance tax and stamp duty on property purchases to record highs in July. The horrible rise in deaths from coronavirus at the beginning of this year meant an increase in IHT as those estates finally made their way through probate. Meanwhile, the Treasury’s efforts to reinvigorate the property market after lockdown with a stamp duty holiday encouraged thousands of people to accelerate their house-buying plans, pushing stamp duty on property to record highs.
While HMRC have suggested it is too early to say whether the higher death rate and higher tax take are linked, given that the last peak in IHT was in October, six months after the first wave, it would appear the two are connected.
