nicko31
Well-known member
The problem is at that rate people would take extreme steps to avoid it.
I really don't get why middle England gets so upset about IHT, when you're dead you're dead
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[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...
- Thread starter TomandJerry
- Start date
I really don't get why middle England gets so upset about IHT, when you're dead you're dead
- Oct 17, 2008
- 10,670
I think the answer to this is pretty clear, and is indeed the same argument used in favour of direct action against climate change.
The answer being that if a person works hard their entire life, saves and/or invests their money wisely, when they die they are able to leave their surviving family including partners, children, grandchildren or dependent relatives in a good financial position.
The “when you’re dead you’re dead” argument is largely considered very selfish, in my view rightly, by those taking action on climate change, because of the world future generations will (or, indeed, won’t) inherit. How exactly is it right that you dismiss “middle England” as being “upset” (in your view clearly wrongly so) about losing 80% of assets they’ve worked hard to obtain?
nicko31
Well-known member
Oh come on, preserving the environment for everyone and preserving your estate to pass onto your kids as unearned income are hardly the same thing?
I'll pay for my kids education and give them a leg up if I can when they want to get a place, but for them to receiving my estate free of tax would be just wrong.
We also have the completely ludicrous situation where untaxed pension pots are completely exempt from IHT. My IFA informed me of this last year, I almost fell off my chair especially with pension pot now uncapped.
rogersix
Well-known member
- Jan 18, 2014
- 7,902
they almost certainly haven't "worked hard", more daily mail spin
We cannot afford a Tory government. They are too expensive and too wasteful with other people’s money.
It’s like having a wayward cousin, spunking the family fortune on loose women and gambling.
Cut. Them. Off.
And quick before they sell any more of the family silver. And blame the servants.
BBassic
I changed this.
- Jul 28, 2011
- 12,310
Perhaps relocate them also? To a large furrow, of some sort? A ditch, if you will.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 35,303
its the sense of fairness. you've worked and earnt money, saved, invested etc. paid tax along the way, then the state takes some more on death.
there are problems with blanket IHT, which is why there are so many exemptions and loopholes, probably the easiest tax to avoid. it doesn't fall on the wealthiest, it falls upon middle classes who haven't done any tax planning. would be better to get rid and tax the recipient income tax or CGT on the gain. more difficult to avoid, fewer objections because middle england accept those taxes.
rogersix
Well-known member
- Jan 18, 2014
- 7,902
fukin plough the lot of them into a ditch
once and finally forever,
are we witnessing the last death throes of the british empire?
Me and my sisters have just paid 150k in inheritance tax, I personally have no problem with that, and I know my mum who when younger was a Liberal would have no problem with it either.
It’s unearned income on a house bought in 1956 and sold in 2023, very happy to pay my way as a sign of a civilised country is everyone paying tax for the good of all.
I can never get people avoiding tax then using the utilities our taxes pay for, it’s stealing as far as I am concerned.
It’s unearned income on a house bought in 1956 and sold in 2023, very happy to pay my way as a sign of a civilised country is everyone paying tax for the good of all.
I can never get people avoiding tax then using the utilities our taxes pay for, it’s stealing as far as I am concerned.
Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 6,583
The argument against inheritence tax is always couched in the terms that everybody paying it started with nothing and built up their wealth from the gutter. These cases are very rare. It's more likely that these people would be losing 80% of assets they've "worked hard" to inherit from their parents or obtained from investments, or because of the massive rise in property prices.
Most of us work hard all our lives. There is little correlation between how many hours you've worked and how much money you have. "Middle England" is upset about this because very few people are happy to confront the truth that financial success is most often less to do with what you've done and more to do with where you happened to land when you were born. People find admitting this truth very difficult, because it seems to come accompanied by an inherent self-criticism, or belittling of their percieved acheivements. As with institutional racism, a lot of those on the right end of the inequality take it personally if they are forced to acknowledge that everybody's chances of success are less to do with them and more to do with protections of privilege put in place long before they were born*. As Leon Rosselson put it:
"By theft and murder they took the land
Now everywhere the walls spring up at their command."
It's easier on the pysche and on the bank balance to continue the pretence that the world isn't unfair and that you got where you are because you're more special than those who didn't. Scientific research suggests that this isn't the case: Valentine Duke won the $1 bet.
* - Back when Mike Harding was a stand up he had a bit about his grandad wandering across countryside only to be confronted by the Lord of the Manor telling him he's on his land. Grandad responds by asking how you can own that was just there before you were born and how he got it. The Lord says that he inherited it from his father and his father and his father. In response Grandad asks him how the first member of his family got it and the Lord says proudly that he fought for it. "Take your jacket off then," says Grandad "I'll fight you for it now."
I should like to see their ‘ands cut orf.
Well, they do seem very keen on Rwanda....
- Oct 17, 2008
- 10,670
Come off it.
My ex-girlfriend lived in a rather deprived former mining town in West Yorkshire, around 15 miles from Leeds. Her Uncle worked from the age of 15 until retirement aged 60 in the colliery. He went from leaving school at 15 to going down a mine for 12 hours 5-6 days a week (Sundays off) for very little money, to running the entire pit and several others. He is the epitome of working class made good.
He was staunch Labour his entire life, and a regional union leader. He worked very long days, never travelled abroad, and the only holidays he took were yearly weekends in Scarborough, or occasionally Skegness.
He saved all his money to start a family with his wife. They lived modestly, rarely eating out in a small terraced house near the colliery so he wouldn’t have to drive and run a car.
Sadly, they couldn’t have children of their own. My ex-girlfriend was like a surrogate daughter to them, and they spoilt her rotten to give her all the chances that many growing up in a deprived area didn’t have. They left their entire inheritance to her, which given they saved every penny after a lifetime of work and no children, was a sizeable amount. This paid for a private education. Her first property bought for her. Driving lessons and a car.
She was the first person in her family to go to University. Thanks to the chances given to her, she was hugely successful.
Now; are you suggesting the right thing to do would be to have taken 80% of everything her Uncle and Aunt had earned, scrimped, saved and frugally to provide for their “only child” should have been taken away and given to the state?
You need to grow up, son.
And they frame it as “the death tax”. To make it sound like it’s a terrible thing.
As you say, the truth is those with large generational wealth have it all squirrelled away off shore and in so called “altruistic foundations” and “charitable trusts ”. So the the taxman will never get any of it.
Whereas the average family have worked hard for their savings and property and have no such facilities to protect it. It’s us that pay “the death tax” while the wealthy are free to die, tax free.
Randy McNob
Now go home and get your f#cking Shinebox
- Jun 13, 2020
- 4,451
Maybe to avoid the "Chaos under Ed Milliband"?
rogersix
Well-known member
- Jan 18, 2014
- 7,902
You're missing the bigger picture sweetie, try using independent thought, and let me know how you get on
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
The amount they gave her would be under the threshold for inheritance tax.
That echoes my story, where my daughter was the first to go to university thanks to my scraping and saving. She has worked hard and lives in Surrey now. Her property is only just over the threshold.
This to me, is where the concept of “inheritance tax” falls down;
There is no taking into account of how the estate was earned, how far over the threshold the individual is, and no accounting for how much the tax would deplete the estate.
I’m usually in favour of strict boundaries and the idea that a line has to be drawn somewhere. But with inheritance tax, if I’m not mistaken, you go over the threshold and you’re paying the tax?
- Oct 17, 2008
- 10,670
Yes, but this is my point. Blanket redistribution of wealth through cash or property “above X figure” is a wholly imperfect solution which punishes those who work hard to achieve as you both have done. It does nothing to offset gains from the embarrassing avarice of rhe über rich, because they simply are protected by the laws and those who make them.
All that would happen if, as ludicrously suggested, inheritance tax was raised to extremely high levels, is the middle will be squeezed even harder with the 1% being completely untouched anyway.
People have been coming up with wealth redistibution policies which are completely unrealistic.
I didn't get the Brexit I didn't vote for either for that matter.