Homeowners can also benefit from a residence nil-rate band of £175,000 on top of the nil-rate band, if they are passing their primary home to a direct descendant. 

This threshold has increased with inflation since it was introduced in 2017, but the Chancellor last year announced that it will be frozen until 2026. This means there will be no allowance for the fact that in April, house prices climbed year-on-year by 12.4pc.   

Julia Rosenbloom, of Evelyn Partners, a wealth management service, said: “Given that the nil-rate band and residence nil-rate band have been frozen until at least April 2026, many more will fall into this tax trap.”   

Mr Sunak has also frozen the thresholds for income tax, capital gains tax and the pensions lifetime allowance, costing taxpayers thousands in a phenomenon known by economists as fiscal drag.

The inheritance tax is frozen until 2025-26, meaning a family paying tax on a £600,000 estate will pay £13,500 more by the end of the period than they would if it had risen with inflation.

The fresh calls for tax cuts came as HMRC data showed that the difference between the total amount of tax expected and that which is actually paid, was £32bn in 2020/21.

Failure to take reasonable care, criminal attacks, non-payment and evasion were among the main reasons for the “tax gap” in 2020/21 in terms of behaviour.

In terms of customers, small businesses were responsible for nearly half of the tax gap, at around £15.6bn, according to HMRC’s data.

Criminals accounted for £5.2bn of the gap, while medium-sized businesses made up £3.9bn and large businesses accounted for £3.6bn.

HMRC’s publication excluded estimates of error and fraud in the Covid support schemes.

The latest estimate from the Business Department is that, in total, £4.9bn of taxpayers’ money will be lost to Covid fraud.

The scale of the fraud has already led to the resignation of Lord Agnew in January. He said the management of fraud during the pandemic had been “nothing less than woeful”.