Elderly sisters lose last ditch legal bid to have death tax parity with gays

Two elderly sisters have lost their legal battle for the same tax privileges as gay couples.

Joyce and Sybil Burden, who have lived together all their lives, are angry that one of them will face an inheritance tax bill of more than £50,000 when the other dies.

They are even more enraged by the fact that same-sex couples can now avoid that tax by entering into a civil partnership, but that no such exemption is available to them.

European judges have dismissed their claim, saying their relationship was "fundamentally different" to that of married or civil partnership couples.

The decision means that to meet the tax bill when the other dies, the surviving sister will have to sell the four-bedroom house in Marlborough, Wiltshire, they have lived in for more than 40 years. Read more
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