Has anyone at the IFS or Resolution Foundation actually bothered to talk to any family-owned businesses? Business relief isn’t a loophole; on the contrary, it levels the playing field. No other type of business faces an utterly punitive tax bill simply because the ownership changes hands.

The current rules give business owners the confidence to make long-term investments in their companies and the communities which they serve. Indeed, there’s anecdotal evidence that mere speculation about proposed changes has already resulted in a tightening of purse strings.

And no wonder. The lobby group Family Business UK has run the numbers on a hypothetical medium-sized, second-generation family-owned business with 100 employees making profits of £4.5m on turnover of £25m a year. It calculated on the death of the founder, Widget & Sons/Daughters could face a tax bill of between £18m and £20.6m.

“At that point it is likely the business would have to either be sold or bring in outside investment, which would remove the benefits of being family-run,” says FBUK. “They are unlikely to regard the cost of the tax bill as being one the business could simply absorb and carry on as usual.”

You can say that again.

There’s also the fairness of the thing. IHT is supposed to be a tax on unearned wealth. But most members of a family that revolves around a business will tell you it’s not just the nominal owner who makes sacrifices. Often relatives will work for the business at below market rates (or for nothing) in order to plough as much profit back into the business and help it grow.

Since that growth will translate into the value of the company, which the Government would be grabbing if the business relief was scrapped, can underpaid (or unpaid) labour now be claimed back from the Treasury? Of course not. So why would anyone do it?

This pretty basic thought-experiment illustrates how those proposing the tax changes clearly wouldn’t recognise a business even if it slapped them around the face with its P&L, have no real clue how their lab-grown policies might behave in the wild and are wholly unprepared for a plethora of unintended consequences.

To the IFS and Resolution Foundation: you do lots of great work. I love you. But on this one, you are not serious people.