Yahoo Finance Grieving families could be forced to pay a 'death tax' of up to £6,000
The UK government is facing a backlash for sneaking through a “death tax” that could see grieving Brits having to fork out up to £6,000.
Probate – legally securing a deceased relatives’ estate – will cost significantly more from April.
Brits currently pay a flat fee of £215 – or £155 if they use a solicitor – for probate, but the charge is set to increase in proportion to the value of estates.
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Roughly 280,000 families a year will face increased charges, with 56,000 of them having to pay between £2,500 and £6,000.
Estates over £2m will cost the full £6,000 to secure. However, those worth less than £50,000 will be exempt from any fee. This is 10 times the current threshold of £5,000.
The “death tax” hike is expected to bring Ministry of Justice an extra £185m a year by 2022/23.
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Ministers have been accused of classifying the increase as a fee rather than a tax to avoid parliamentary scrutiny.
Tax rises are usually introduced in parliamentary bills, and go through a process of examination and debate before being voted on by both the House of Commons and the Lords.
However, because it was classified as a fee, the probate increase was able to be passed with a simple change to legislation called a statutory instrument.
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The legislation committee approved the change by a vote of nine to eight on Thursday.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “We condemn this proposed stealth tax on grieving families.
“It’s hard enough to deal with loss of a loved one without the government stepping in and taking away so much through inheritance tax and now this proposed increase to probate charges.
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“While probate can be bureaucratically burdensome, these death tax hikes are totally unreasonable and will hit taxpayers even harder, we should instead abolish inheritance tax.”
