Why we shouldn’t exempt the family home from inheritance tax

London’s deputy mayor thinks the family home shouldn’t be liable for inheritance tax. This makes no sense at all, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

I'm completely bemused by this article in the Times today. It has London's deputy mayor on housing, Richard Blakeway, saying that one of the reasons older people won't downsize from large houses is because they "could gain a big profit which would be liable to inheritance tax when they die".

His solution is to "see if there are ways to protect this cash from inheritance tax" (IHT). This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.