Scrap Inheritance Tax

[Si Hunt]

The Daily Express are campaigning to get the PM to agree to scrap inheritance tax in the next election. Much as I loathe the paper, I agree with this aim - inheritance tax is a mean and pointless tax. People shouldn't be taxed when they are dead! You pay tax when you earn, and when you spend it as well. You should not be taxed a third time when you leave your possessions behind.

So anyway. 23,000 people have already signed it. Just click the link below, fill in your details, then they send you an e-mail. Click the link in the e-mail to register your support.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ihtcrusade/

Let's ban this hideous tax!

Si.

[Paul Monk]

I agree. My father in law is giving us his inheritance bit by bit each year so that we avoid the dreaded tax once he's popped his clogs.

[Wayne]

I agree. My father in law is giving us his inheritance bit by bit each year so that we avoid the dreaded tax once he's popped his clogs.

My Grandad has been doing the same thing for quite a few years now. All of us grandchildren have had a bit as well. Somehow it feels slightly odd getting his money off him before he's gone, but it does make sense in view of the tax thing.

[Rob McCow]

Normally, I can think of arguments in favour of and against various things that HM's Government does. But I really am struggling to think of an argument in favour of inheritance tax.

These days, HM's Gov. uses tax as a big stick to beat us with when we do something that's environmetnally unfriendly, or makes us lots of money. Is that the aim with inheritance tax too?

I can understand them taking a small proportion of people's inheritances, but from memory they seem to try and grab as much as they can. It's a very odd source of income.

[Jason Thompson]

I hate inheritance tax, largely because it is currently in the process of doing me out of about 25,000. The deceased individual earned money and built up her fortune in a lawful fashion, paying tax on all of it as the law demanded. She used that money to buy possessions, have a home built, stuff like that. Why, then, do the government demand that after her death she hands over a huge chunk of that legally earned and taxed fortune to the state?

Worse, inheritance tax hasn't changed with things like the housing market. I believe I am correct in saying that inheritance tax is 40% (40 bloody percent!)of any residual estate value above a threshold of 285,000. These days just owning a decent house can put your estate value over that threshold, so your heirs are screwed whatever happens.

I'd love to see inheritance tax scrapped, or at the very least brought more into line with other financial factors, although it certainly won't happen before I get my money. However, you know what the government will say: if they scrap or cut inheritance tax that revenue has to come from somewhere else, or else we have to suffer cuts in services and state spending. Instead of trying to find the best use of the money they get, they seem to just find more ways of getting more money to throw at problems.

[Si Hunt]

if they scrap or cut inheritance tax that revenue has to come from somewhere else, or else we have to suffer cuts in services and state spending.

They should spend less on MP's giant salaries and waging war abroad and putting up refugees then. Do you know there was a story in the news the other day about a refugee who'd come over from some war-torn country and attacked someone. He was locked up, then released and NOT DEPORTED. The government refused to return him to a country where he wasn't safe. So he raped a little girl, and now we're continuing to pay for his keep in prison.

The trouble I have though with this government that taxes everything that moves and has such rubbish foreign policy, is that I can't see a better alternative. Worse, this government has actually implemented good policies that matter to me - banned smoking in pubs and fox hunting for starters. I'd be scared of those things being reversed if we got a different government in. And would the tories really tax us and spend it more fairly? I doubt it.

Si.

[Raston]

They should spend less on MP's giant salaries

They only get just over 58,000 a year, not exactly a lot when you consider the hours they have to put in, and of course when you remember that they are running the country. Especially when Doctors are on 100,000. MP's are paid a reasonable well, but its not exactly big money!

[Trudi G]

Do you know there was a story in the news the other day about a refugee who'd come over from some war-torn country and attacked someone. He was locked up, then released and NOT DEPORTED. The government refused to return him to a country where he wasn't safe. So he raped a little girl, and now we're continuing to pay for his keep in prison.


Si.

It's that sort of thing that makes me absolutely livid. If they break the law in this country, they don't deserve to stay here, and should be deported back to their own countries to stay in their own prisons so we don't have to pay for them, with a lifetime ban from returning to this country.

[Dirk Gently]

They only get just over 58,000 a year, not exactly a lot when you consider the hours they have to put in, and of course when you remember that they are running the country. Especially when Doctors are on 100,000. MP's are paid a reasonable well, but its not exactly big money!

Yes that is their BASIC salary but then they get huge payments for 'expenses'. These can add up to over 100,000 a year as well as their 58,000.

I believe this tax is unfair & taxes you just because the housing market has gone up.
I voted for Labour in 1997 because they said that the were going to get rid of inheritance tax & the gits only increased the threshold & didn't do what they said they were going to. Even if Labour do accept this petition & add it to their manifesto they'll only ignore it if they get back in. You can't trust politicians.

[Captain Tancredi]

I think I can say with confidence that when my mum and dad die, I won't be troubled by inheritance tax- they have no savings and one home which broke the 60k barrier last year.

[Andrew Curnow]

I agree with the general consensus, which is that inheritance tax is clearly wholly unfair. I'd also like to add that I find it hard to feel that sorry for poverty-stricken MPs on (a minimum) of 58,000 a year...

[Si Hunt]

I hope you've all signed the petition then!

Si.

[WhiteCrow]

They should spend less on MP's giant salaries and waging war abroad and putting up refugees then.

No but seriously ...

I mean odd isn't it - the Commons is always split on every issue, except when it comes to voting in their pay rise! Public sector pay frozen at 2%, MPs who are "public servants" (no really) get about 20-30% some years.

Sorry Si, but the fact you are reading the Sun is beginning to show me thinks!

[Rob McCow]

They only get just over 58,000 a year, not exactly a lot

Yeah, but there are other benefits. One good wheeze is to privitise an industry and then leave politics and move into the directors board of the newly formed private company. Rock on!

There is a theory that if MP's salaries were substantially increased, they'd be able to attract more competent and energetic people to the roles.

[Captain Tancredi]

In their defence, MPs would probably argue that many of them have to give up careers for what is effectively a four to five-year contract with no guarantee of work after that. I suspect that the rationale behind inheritance tax is that for the beneficiaries of the estate, it can amount to 250,000+ of effectively unearned income so it's taxed at roughly the same rate as if it had been somebody's salary.

But it's a problem which primarily affects middle-aged people in the south of England, so it probably depends on how much the parties feel they need that vote at the next election. As I've said, neither I nor most of my family will be bothered by it, so personally what would bother me would be taxes being raised elsewhere to plug the gap.

[Raston]

There is a theory that if MP's salaries were substantially increased, they'd be able to attract more competent and energetic people to the roles.

Yes indeed. One of the main problems with politics is that its the legal bridage that get very involved with it-because it is fairly easy for them to switch back to where they left off if they lose their seats.

And to use my examples of Doctors-who would be good people to have in parliament with their experience of the health sector- they would be 42,000 a year worse off.

Lets face it, the guys running the country should be paid at least as well as the people who work under them! There are now thousands of public workers earning over 100,000 a year MP's should be waged to reflect those high wages.

Pay peanuts and you get monkeys is what they say!

[Si Hunt]

Sorry Si, but the fact you are reading the Sun is beginning to show me thinks!

I certainly do not read "The Sun" or any other paper.

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

the guys running the country should be paid at least as well as the people who work under them! There are now thousands of public workers earning over 100,000 a year MP's should be waged to reflect those high wages

It's stretching it a bit to suggest that all MPs are 'running the country' though isn't it.

Going back to the subject of the thread, though, inheritance tax does seem to be pretty much indefensible. I can't imagine it's a problem I'm going to have to deal with myself (my parents don't own their own house, and as they retire this Summer I can't see them buying one now) but even so it just seems grossly unfair.

[Jason Thompson]

I suspect that the rationale behind inheritance tax is that for the beneficiaries of the estate, it can amount to 250,000+ of effectively unearned income

Which is a load of crap*, because it was earned and taxed by someone else, and the beneficiaries are only getting it at the cost of losing a relative or close friend. Believe me I'd rather have the person alive than the money they're giving me, so I don't think the money could be called 'unearned' when it's cost me a huge personal loss already.

But of course personal losses don't count unless you're suing some company or other, so the government feels totally at liberty to compound the loss by taking a huge chunk of their estate away from me as well. Bastards.

*Note that I'm referring to the suspected rationale as a load of crap, not your views, Captain.

[Nathan]

Inheritance Tax doesn't bother me.

I'm spending all my money and not leaving it to my kids

Seriously though, I would rather see it spent on hospitals, education and a whole host of social projects rather than go to someone who has not earnt it other by dint of being related.

You only have to look at the Fulfords to see where that ends.

[Nathan]

Seriously serious now (and not just half serious as above) I wouldn't scrap the tax but would up the threshold further to keep people who just have resonable homes with a high value out of it.

[Raston]

Inheritance Tax doesn't bother me.

I'm spending all my money and not leaving it to my kids

Seriously though, I would rather see it spent on hospitals, education and a whole host of social projects rather than go to someone who has not earnt it other by dint of being related.

You only have to look at the Fulfords to see where that ends.

I'd rather people were allowed to inherit money and spend it themselves, perhaps on a good education and their own health care healthcare (remember some private schools have fees that are actually lower than the spending per pupil on an average state school but have vastly improved results on an average state school-private education is the best system). The NHS is the biggest drain on money in the country-yes it is important but throwing money at it does not fix its problems (as both Major and Blair discovered). If your bucket has hole in it, fix the hole don't keep adding water.

The fulfords are a good example of what inheritance tax causes-they live in a total mess in a run down old house that they can't afford to keep up because successive inheritances have been taxs so that there is no capital to upkeep the property just the property itself. The Fulfords are quite a sad family in that respect. However the way they themselves behave is not a good example of any family, and people like that would be like that no matter what walk of life they were in.

[Si Hunt]

Andrew's implication that the more you pay MP's the better job they do is uncharmingly naieve.

Si.

[Raston]

Andrew's implication that the more you pay MP's the better job they do is uncharmingly naieve.

Si.

No. That was not my point-my point is that if you want top people to give up their careers and enter parliament then you have to pay them a more higher wage.

Giving up a high paid job for a huge pay cut and a job you may only have for 4 years is a lot to ask-and part of the reason parliament is full of lawyers, because they can pretty much pick up from where they left off- a captain of industry can't.

[Nathan]

Their was a brilliant quote in Tony Marchant's Holding On about this, but I can't find it online and I can't be bothered to watch it again to find it and transcribe it.

I'd rather people were allowed to inherit money and spend it themselves, perhaps on a good education and their own health care healthcare (remember some private schools have fees that are actually lower than the spending per pupil on an average state school but have vastly improved results on an average state school-private education is the best system).

That may have to do more though with the support (and the availablity of books in a household) from parents who can afford and have the motivation to pay private fees rather than the overall quality of teaching.

You can't make life choices when you are 5.