Vince Cable has said David Cameron killed off Lib Dem plans for a mansion tax because he came under pressure from wealthy Tory donors.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's World at One programme on Thursday, the business secretary said proposals to introduce a tax on homes worth more than £2m was not "lost for all time" after George Osborne failed to include it in his Autumn Statement.
"We are going to make the case the Conservatives are very ill-advised in going down that route, the public do expect the wealthiest in society pay their fair share," he said.
"I suspect what happened was some of their donors, very wealthy people, stamped their feet and said 'up with this we will not put', and it didn't happen and I very much regret that."
In a sign of the tension within the coalition over the issue of tax, the Lib Dem press office issued a release after the chancellor's statement attacking the Tories for cutting taxes for the rich and not the poor.
The email read: "The only tax cuts the Conservatives support are ones for the very rich. At the General Election, their priority was to cut inheritance tax for millionaires. In the Coalition, Liberal Democrats have blocked these plans and instead we are cutting taxes for millions."
However after journalists questioned whether this meant the coalition was at war over the Autumn Statement even after it had been given, the Lib Dems retracted the press release claiming it had been sent by mistake.