Most reliefs have good commercial purposes.
Inheritance tax relief on businesses and farms - stops them being sold for pieces after death to fund a tax bill.
Inheritance tax relief on heritage assets - only for those who can afford heritage assets, but keeps them in the UK for cultural purposes.
Tax efficient investments that reduce tax liabilities - hugely important for risky start ups trying to attract capital.
Domicile rules - encourage mega rich oligarchs and sheiks to visit and spend significant cash in a UK economy.
There’s more anti-avoidance and loophole closers than there are reliefs (ok, I’ve never counted but most reliefs have at least one targeted anti avoidance rule).
Only 4% of the population pay IHT at all, the whole tax exists only to be paid by the ultra wealthy. So any reliefs will benefit them by definition.
Anyone can incorporate a sole trade for the tax benefits, but they only become truly beneficial if you leave all your money in the company. Anyone can do that… but unfortunately most of us need to spend it.
Yes the rich benefit from reliefs the most, but that’s because they have more complex affairs and higher tax bills than the average man and so have more scope to claim them.
But please, enlighten me on the loopholes you think the ultra wealthy are exploiting - and who these ultra wealthy are. Me and my colleagues have spoken with probably all of the Times rich list at one time or another, and I’d say the majority of those aren’t benefitting from these “loopholes”.
In fact there’s literally a rule that if HMRC think what you are doing is legal but abusive of the rules, they can ignore the rules and tax you as they think it should be taxed anyway!