Osborne to repeat pledge to cut inheritance tax - Telegraph

LONDON (Reuters) - Chancellor George Osborne will soon repeat a Conservative pledge to raise the threshold at which people pay inheritance tax on properties to 1 million pounds, The Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday.

With many opinion polls showing the governing Conservatives neck-and-neck with the opposition Labour party, Osborne will be looking for a chance to boost his party's re-election prospects at his annual budget statement on Wednesday.

The Telegraph said Osborne had wanted to include the inheritance tax move in the budget but was vetoed by the Conservatives' Liberal Democrat coalition partners. Instead, it would be included in the Conservatives' election programme.

The newspaper said the change would cut the inheritance tax bill of about 20,000 middle-class families and would cost the Treasury about 1 billion pounds.

Before the last election, in 2010, the Conservatives also promised to raise the threshold at which the 40 percent inheritance tax on estates starts being paid to 1 million pounds from its current level of 325,000 pounds. But they failed to overcome opposition to the change from the Liberal Democrats.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by William Schomberg)