But now we come to the biggest problem with Ms Badenoch’s proposed IHT regime. Despite her promise, do we really believe that a future government will ever deem the public finances to be in such fine fettle that this particular tax can be ditched?
If the next government fully implements Ms Badenoch’s promises – the Cameron governments did no such thing in regard to Osborne’s 2007 pledge, but then they did have the excuse of the financial crisis – those left paying IHT will be the rich, or at least the significantly affluent.
The economic arguments for scrapping this tax that would affect only the wealthy would be powerful. If combined with broader tax reform, much of the wealth that has flown out of Britain in the past few years could flood back. And new wealth would also come in besides. Rather than suffering a billionaire exodus, Britain would once more be a country open for business.
But it is not economics which has the trump card when it comes to tax policy. Scrapping taxes on the wealthy is politically difficult – especially so for a Conservative government.
The likely reasons for Ms Badenoch not announcing plans to fully scrap IHT are not the ones she vaunted about economic prudence and balancing the budget. No, they are the fear of being pilloried for handing tax cuts to billionaires. This is certainly the attack line Labour and the Left more generally would have inevitably rolled out. Those arguments would be all the louder once many fewer estates paid IHT.
And that is why death taxes are sadly more securely in place now than they were before Ms Badenoch’s speech.
