Govt unlikely to introduce Inheritance Tax

CNBC-TV18 learns from sources that the government is unlikely to re-introduce Inheritance Tax on February 1.

Earlier there was a buzz that the government could levy a tax on the value of assets passed on to legal heirs through inheritance. The tax which would have applied only to families with a certain net worth, could have ranged between 5 and 10 percent. However, now, the government feels that the climate is not conducive for the re-introduction of the Inheritance Tax. It wants to weigh in on the socio-economic factors before arriving at a decision.

Inheritance Tax, also known as estate tax was introduced in the year 1953 and was abolished by the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1985.