Andrew Tyrie, MP and chair of the Treasury select committee, has claimed that changes to inheritance tax are too ‘messy’, leaving uncertainty and confusion for people who are planning their wills about the amount that they can pass on tax-free at death.

The main change is an increased threshold (from £325,000 to £500,000), in addition to downsizing rules designed to ensure that the elderly do not stay in large homes that they neither want nor need purely for tax reasons.

Tyrie said, "These proposals also bring a lot of uncertainty. Until the downsizing rules are laid in statute – not likely to occur until later in 2016 – elderly homeowners will have no basis on which to plan."

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See also: Inheritance tax: latest documents