Four former cabinet ministers and more than 50 MPs have called for inheritance tax to be abolished.
The campaign is being championed by the Conservative growth group, a caucus of 55 MPs allied to former prime minister Liz Truss.
Nadhim Zahawi said the tax was “morally wrong”, Jacob Rees-Mogg labelled it “unfair” and Priti Patel said it was “regressive and punitive”.
Ranil Jaywardena, who was briefly environment secretary under Truss and leads the group, said: “We need to be bold and abolish inheritance tax altogether, no ifs, not buts. It’s a death tax. It’s also a double tax, because it’s a tax on money that has already been taxed. It’s not fair, it’s not Conservative and it’s not British. It needs to go.”
While inheritance tax raises £7bn for the Exchequer, it is not charged on estates worth less than £325,000. More than 93% of estates do not pay the tax, according to Treasury figures.
