Inheritance tax is often referred to as a voluntary tax, paid by those who distrust their children more than they dislike the Treasury! In practice, there are several steps you can take in order to reduce the amount of inheritance tax paid by your children or grandchildren, in some cases reducing it to zero. Despite a common financial objective to reduce the amount of inheritance tax paid on death, it’s interesting to note that relatively few ‘estates’ actually pay any inheritance tax in the first place. The latest statistics from the Office for National Statistics show only 4.2% of deaths in the UK were liable to inheritance tax. These figures are in respect of 2015/16, the latest year for which statistics are available.