In the last financial year the government collected £3.3bn in inheritance tax and projects to rake in £3.6bn from the tax in this financial year. Over the past five years alone there has been a 49% rise in government revenue from inheritance tax. In 1996 only 15,000 estates paid inheritance tax. By March 2004, according to the latest available data, the number of estates paying inheritance tax had more than doubled to 30,451, and the government’s own estimates put the number of estates paying inheritance tax this financial year 22% higher at 37,000.
