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| Ed Miliband, Labour Leader. |
Ed
Miliband’s team were accused of plotting a compulsory levy that could snatch
£46,000 from the average estate.
Critics
warned that families still grieving for lost relatives could face a “secret tax
bombshell” under the proposals.
The
row was last night threatening to derail the Labour leader’s campaign to
highlight party election promises.
And
it was also being seen as a slap in the face to the hundreds of thousands of
Daily Express readers who backed this newspaper’s crusade for the abolition
of inheritance tax.
Tory
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “People who save all their lives deserve
better than a secret tax bombshell if Labour were ever to get in.”
The death tax proposals
were exposed when comments made by shadow health secretary Andy Burnham – at a
conference organised by the Left-wing Fabian Society last month – were
revealed yesterday.
Labour chiefs previously
abandoned plans for a levy to cover the costs of social care before the last
general election in 2010 – but Mr Burnham confirmed the measure was being
revived in “internal party discussions”.
