Over £280m of inheritance tax may have been unnecessarily paid on life insurance policies in 2018/19 which could have been avoided if the policies had been written in trust, according to a leading Chartered Financial Planner.

The 1.25% National Insurance increase for employers and employees announced this week could boost pension saving by making salary sacrifice more attractive, Chartered Financial Planner Sean McCann has predicted.

HMRC returned £115.6m in overpaid emergency pension tax in the 2020/21 tax year.

HMRC collected £5.33bn from inheritance tax in the 2020/21 tax year, a rise from £5.12bn in 2019/20.