(The history is messier than the first tweet suggests because of the interaction with the bank levy, but that doesn't change the overall picture. We'll probably include a 20-paragraph footnote on this in our report. )

If the TUC thinks bank taxes should rise then it should be honest and make that argument. Inventing a fake history is a way to make sure nobody takes you seriously.

More populist tosh from the TUC. There was no "tax break for the banks". The 8% bank surcharge was created to offset the corporation tax cut from 28% to 20%. So, when corporation tax then went up 5% to its current level, the surcharge went down 5%. Not a tax break.

"Only 4% of estates pay IHT" Misleading because there's no IHT when the first spouse dies. So the true figure is nearer 7%.

The evidence says otherwise. Please read our report.

Did any of your cohort buy millions of pounds of woodland and agricultural property to avoid inheritance tax?

Find some of the elderly people who bought £m of woodland to avoid inheritance tax, and ask them what they think.

This does in fact seem obvious to everyone apart from the people who came up with the policy.

You are a dangerous man. Our team hadn't even thought about artificial planning around expensive fixtures...

If money is available for tax cuts, then they need to be targeted. Proper modelling, not vibes. And surely, given the position the UK is in, growth should be the priority.

Here's our scoring of the growth impact of recently proposed tax cuts. The Conservative proposal is right at the bottom. Depressingly, all the tax cuts recently proposed by politicians are at the bottom of the chart.

But if growth is the priority, we shouldn't be looking at IHT at all. Evidence suggests that cutting IHT boosts growth less than cutting other property/wealth taxes. There's evidence of negative effects (because heirs receiving inheritances have a reduced incentive to work).

This is a bad IHT cut. For the same money we could increase the nil rate band to £900k/person, or alternatively cut the rate from 40% to 17.5%. Either would be simpler, fairer, and not distort the housing market.

And there are other undesirable effects. The proposal could shift £60bn–£110bn from savings and investments into housing, and reduce the number of £1m-plus homes coming onto the market in London and the South East by 3%–6% each year.