What Labour gets wrong about inheritance tax

What is the primary purpose of a tax: to raise revenue to fund public services or as a tool to help engineer society in a way which the government favours? It should disturb us that Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury who is likely to be holding the real job by Friday, seems to believe the latter.

Addressing a public meeting in Bristol in March he hinted that Labour will seek to increase inheritance tax, telling his audience ‘you need to think of the inheritance tax as a way to redistribute money’. He added that a Starmer government will seek to use the tax to tackle ‘inter-generational unfairness’.

This is not to say that inheritance tax is an unfair tax. As I have written here before, I favour treating inherited money in exactly the same way as money which has been earned in wages, or gained through investments.