The tax system treats funds that remain in a pension at death extremely favourably. Where an individual dies before age 75, funds remaining in their pension escape income tax entirely - there was income tax relief when the money was paid into the pension and no income tax when the money is taken...

This report gives a new and up-to-date picture of the giving and receiving of significant intergenerational wealth transfers during life, summarising the findings of two research papers. New data from the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) allow us to build a comprehensive picture of the flow of...

We set out issues with the inheritance tax system and examine options for reform and the distributional impacts of reforming or abolishing the tax.

This report describes patterns of financial help from family received by first-time buyers. We quantify the value of gifts and loans made, how they vary across different regions of the country and between those from different parental backgrounds, and shed light on their role in explaining...

How should pensions be taxed? We propose income tax and National Insurance reforms that would more evenly support pension saving. Pensions are the biggest component of household wealth and are treated favourably by the tax system. That means getting pensions tax design right matters. It matters...

Although older generations have substantially more wealth than their recent predecessors did at the same age, younger generations do not. Bringing together UK data on those born between the 1930s and 1980s and a lifecycle model of saving, I quantify whether this is due to changes in preferences...

We document key patterns in the flow of significant gifts and loans between friends and family in Great Britain, using newly-available data from the Wealth and Assets Survey. We identify a number of new stylised facts. Gifts and loans are generally intergenerational transfers: 83% of the value...

Understanding the drivers of wealth transfers during life is crucial to understanding the intergenerational transmission of inequality, the optimal design of social insurance, and the efficacy of expansionary fiscal policy. To shed light on this, we analyse the relationships between giving and...

This report examines the inheritances that are likely to be received by those living in England who were born in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. We explore the age at which inheritances are likely to be received and the amounts that we expect to be inherited, focusing on key inequalities in each....

Inheritances have been growing as a share of national income in the UK since the 1970s. This trend looks set to continue as generations at older ages hold more wealth than their immediate predecessors but younger generations have no higher incomes than the generations born just before them. What...