Why do most people in the UK want inheritance tax abolished ?

[pellinore]

I believe the figures in this survey. What I find extraordinarily is that a majority of the population favour scrapping a tax they will never pay, because they will never have enough money. Currently only 4pc of families pay the tax, and even in the worst-case scenario (inflation continues at the rate it is), only around one in eight people (12.5%) will face an inheritance tax bill in the next decade, because they won't meet the £1 million threshold for a married couple.

I wonder if the same situation occurs in the US or other developed countries: the huge majority of non-millionaires are rooting for tax protection for the minority of millionaires? To me, it just doesn't make sense.

The majority of British people now want inheritance tax gone, polling suggests, as pressure grows on Rishi Sunak to abolish the divisive duty.

More than half of the country backs the abolition of inheritance tax, a poll carried out by YouGov has found.

The survey, which surveyed a nationally representative group of more than 2,000 people, found that, of those who voted Conservative in the last general election, 70pc said they supported the abolition of inheritance tax. Almost two-fifths of Labour voters agreed the death levy should be scrapped.

More than two-fifths of 18 to 24 year-olds said they supported scrapping inheritance tax, compared with 32pc who said they opposed. A quarter said they did not know.

Most taxpayers now want inheritance tax abolished, poll reveals (msn.com)

Edited September 29, 2023 by pellinore

[Essan]

Its not something that'll ever affect me, but I have always been opposed to inheritance tax.

My parents work hard and pay taxes.  With what they have left they buy a house, intending to leave it to me so that I have a place to live.   They die.   I inherit the house.  And then have to sell it because the Govt demand 40% of what it's worth .... 

Mind, personally, I would abolish all income tax as well.   And replace everything with a higher rate of tax on non essentials - like iPhones, luxury cruises and parsnips.

[pellinore]

33 minutes ago, Essan said:

Its not something that'll ever affect me, but I have always been opposed to inheritance tax.

My parents work hard and pay taxes.  With what they have left they buy a house, intending to leave it to me so that I have a place to live.   They die.   I inherit the house.  And then have to sell it because the Govt demand 40% of what it's worth .... 

Mind, personally, I would abolish all income tax as well.   And replace everything with a higher rate of tax on non essentials - like iPhones, luxury cruises and parsnips.

I find your first sentence extraordinary. Especially since you probably know this: (quoted from the FT): Economists have warned of wealth inequality rising in Great Britain owing to the pandemic after 14 years of relative stability. The wealthiest 10 per cent of households owned 43 per cent of all the wealth in Britain between April 2018 to March 2020, data from the Office for National Statistics showed on Friday. In contrast, the bottom half of the population held only 9 per cent.

And you probably also know that if there wasn't such inequality, and the ultra-wealthy paid their fair share of tax, the government wouldn't have to demand 40% of what your parents' house is worth. So, you are willingly accepting a form of serfdom as a matter of principle.

And your last sentence relates to direct vs indirect taxation. Which is incredibly unfair. Since we all have to buy things, abolishing income tax and loading it on a form of VAT would hit the poorest hardest.

I'm thinking you must be in the top tier of earners, Essan!

[itsnotoutthere]

Because it's legalised theft. Why should the government steel a percentage of the value of something that's already been bought and paid for 10 times over simply because it's now the property of their children?  Following the logic, why not tax jewelery, furniture, motor cars and anything else parents leave their children when they die, It's a bit like the TV Tax. Why should you pay a tax for owning a television that you've already paid for. 

Edited September 29, 2023 by itsnotoutthere

[itsnotoutthere]

2 hours ago, pellinore said:

I find your first sentence extraordinary. Especially since you probably know this: (quoted from the FT): Economists have warned of wealth inequality rising in Great Britain owing to the pandemic after 14 years of relative stability. The wealthiest 10 per cent of households owned 43 per cent of all the wealth in Britain between April 2018 to March 2020, data from the Office for National Statistics showed on Friday. In contrast, the bottom half of the population held only 9 per cent.

And you probably also know that if there wasn't such inequality, and the ultra-wealthy paid their fair share of tax, the government wouldn't have to demand 40% of what your parents' house is worth. So, you are willingly accepting a form of serfdom as a matter of principle.

And your last sentence relates to direct vs indirect taxation. Which is incredibly unfair. Since we all have to buy things, abolishing income tax and loading it on a form of VAT would hit the poorest hardest.

I'm thinking you must be in the top tier of earners, Essan!

[pellinore]

10 hours ago, itsnotoutthere said:

Because it's legalised theft. Why should the government steel a percentage of the value of something that's already been bought and paid for 10 times over simply because it's now the property of their children?  Following the logic, why not tax jewelery, furniture, motor cars and anything else parents leave their children when they die, It's a bit like the TV Tax. Why should you pay a tax for owning a television that you've already paid for. 

I don't think the TV licence fee is comparable to inheritance tax. You are not paying for the TV, you are paying for the service, like mobile phone monthly fees.

Some people think inheritance tax should be far heavier than it is. It promotes inequality. Poorer people, who are not subject to it anyway, scrimp all their lives, pay their mortgage, then if they go into a nursing home it's sold to pay the fees. Their families get nothing. (The poorest people pay rent all their lives, even into retirement, often paying rent to millionaires who own property portfolios).

With the cap on care home fees, and inheritance tax allowance at £1 million, people in the North of England stand to lose everything at the end of their lives, while wealthier people in the South, even if they need a care home, will still have hundreds of thousands to pass on to their children, due to the difference in property prices. With inheritance tax abolished, they will have even more to pass on.

The Duke of Westminster is one of the wealthiest people in the UK. He owns much of the West End of London. He did nothing to amass that wealth, not one thing, he was just born into the family that was pally with William the Conqueror centuries ago.

How can all this be even slightly fair?

[Grey Area]

13 hours ago, itsnotoutthere said:

Because it's legalised theft. Why should the government steel a percentage of the value of something that's already been bought and paid for 10 times over simply because it's now the property of their children?  Following the logic, why not tax jewelery, furniture, motor cars and anything else parents leave their children when they die, It's a bit like the TV Tax. Why should you pay a tax for owning a television that you've already paid for. 

All that is taxed.  On death, it is the total value of your estate.  The focus is normally on property as that represents the largest value asset an individual might have, but if you have a garage with three Ferraris and a bag full of diamond jewellery, that gets taxed too… So Yeah death and taxes.

2 hours ago, pellinore said:

With the cap on care home fees, and inheritance tax allowance at £1 million,

I don’t get what this £1 million figure is.  I don’t pretend to fully understand the system, it’s really quite complicated, but my understanding is:

Inheritance tax is paid for an individual on the value of your estate above £325,000.  So if your estate is worth £400,000 then you are taxed for 40% of that remaining £75,000.

If you leave property to a spouse or children, that tax free threshold rise to £500,000.  For married couples the tax free threshold is doubled to £650,000.

There is no tax if the assets above the threshold are gifted to a charity.

Inheritance tax is essentially a tax on the wealthiest.  It’s not something talked about much and most people will never have to worry about this.  However there is something incredibly distasteful about financial interference following the loss of a life.

[Essan]

17 hours ago, pellinore said:

I'm thinking you must be in the top tier of earners, Essan!

I barely earn enough to pay income tax

[pellinore]

2 hours ago, Grey Area said:

I don’t get what this £1 million figure is.  I don’t pretend to fully understand the system, it’s really quite complicated, but my understanding is:

Inheritance tax is essentially a tax on the wealthiest.  It’s not something talked about much and most people will never have to worry about this.  However there is something incredibly distasteful about financial interference following the loss of a life.

I've always agreed with your figures, but the £1 million is now quoted in several sources incl. this one:Inheritance threshold UK: how it works - Times Money Mentor (thetimes.co.uk)

Married and civil partnership couples also stand to inherit any unused part of their partner’s tax-free thresholds.

So your surviving spouse will pay no IHT on anything you leave them. They will also receive your £325,000 inheritance tax threshold and the property limit of £175,000.

This means they will have a combined tax-free and property limit of £1 million when they die. This assumes the home is left to children or grandchildren and the estate is under £2 million.

It is only when the surviving spouse or civil partner dies that inheritance tax might be due on the estate.

I don't agree with your last sentence at all. As I've said above, IT is one of the fairer taxes and would help to reduce inequality if it was applied a bit more vigorously. And however distasteful it might be, insurance payouts, compensation, etc. as well as tax, are often discussed after loss of life or limb.

 

Edited September 30, 2023 by pellinore

[Grey Area]

12 hours ago, pellinore said:

I don't agree with your last sentence at all. As I've said above, IT is one of the fairer taxes and would help to reduce inequality if it was applied a bit more vigorously. And however distasteful it might be, insurance payouts, compensation, etc. as well as tax, are often discussed after loss of life or limb.

It was not a personal statement to be fair.  You said in the OP that a majority would be in favour of scrapping this tax.

I imagine most families over the threshold would agree with this, and for everyone else it’s likely never been something they have been exposed to, so suddenly finding out that on your death the government comes along and takes a big chunk of your assets is going to turn anyone off, and it’s quite complex so many people will simply vote with their feet not really understanding the ins and outs.

As for me, I am on the fence.  The notion of wealth redistribution is appealing, but honestly, unless a diamond meteor lands in my back yard I am not going to be affected by this at all.

[pellinore]

 

30 minutes ago, Grey Area said:

It was not a personal statement to be fair.  You said in the OP that a majority would be in favour of scrapping this tax.

I imagine most families over the threshold would agree with this, and for everyone else it’s likely never been something they have been exposed to, so suddenly finding out that on your death the government comes along and takes a big chunk of your assets is going to turn anyone off, and it’s quite complex so many people will simply vote with their feet not really understanding the ins and outs.

As for me, I am on the fence.  The notion of wealth redistribution is appealing, but honestly, unless a diamond meteor lands in my back yard I am not going to be affected by this at all.

I agree with the second paragraph. 

I disagree with your last sentence. A bit fairer (just a bit, I'm not talking about a revolution or socialism) redistribution might mean a few more public libraries, a few more bus services, a bit more spent making town centres and recs look nice, a few more schools having RAAC fixed and a youth facilities being reopened. You probably would be affected by this, even if on an almost subliminal level. 

Edited September 30, 2023 by pellinore

[Duke Wellington]

On 9/29/2023 at 4:52 PM, pellinore said:

I find your first sentence extraordinary. Especially since you probably know this: (quoted from the FT): Economists have warned of wealth inequality rising in Great Britain owing to the pandemic after 14 years of relative stability. The wealthiest 10 per cent of households owned 43 per cent of all the wealth in Britain between April 2018 to March 2020, data from the Office for National Statistics showed on Friday. In contrast, the bottom half of the population held only 9 per cent.

And you probably also know that if there wasn't such inequality, and the ultra-wealthy paid their fair share of tax, the government wouldn't have to demand 40% of what your parents' house is worth. So, you are willingly accepting a form of serfdom as a matter of principle.

And your last sentence relates to direct vs indirect taxation. Which is incredibly unfair. Since we all have to buy things, abolishing income tax and loading it on a form of VAT would hit the poorest hardest.

I'm thinking you must be in the top tier of earners, Essan!

The arguments for socialism/communism are based on self delusion.

To begin with people are not created equal. You can give people infinite access to education and the fact remains that most are not intelligent enough to get a degree in their chosen field. Hence, most do not have the capability to function as doctors, solicitors, accountants, IT managers, engineers, physicists, the list goes on. The greater the importance and value of a persons contribution towards society the more we pay them. 

Socialists/communists engage in two psychological processes. The first is lying to oneself that everyone is equally capable and therefore deducing the reason why others have wealth is they must be corrupt. They must be exploiting the general population to hold them back while keeping the wealth for themselves. At its core is an inability to cope with ego wounding. The second is the demonization of the successful as morally bankrupt. This is needed to justify taking money off them. Ah, these immoral scumbags do not deserve their wealth and therefore it is okay to redistribute it away.

Next we have the negative impacts of socialism/communism on an economy.

State provided services and benefits have to be paid for. If we tax organisations then it drives up their costs per unit produced making it harder to compete in price sensitive markets. The result is, and the UK is a perfect example, that you end up with a nation of shop assistants and bankers. The middle income jobs have been gutted as organisations have been forced to move to places like China in order to remain competitive. When it comes to minimum wage then we can treat that as a extra tax for the purposes of this explanation. If we tax the wealthy more then they have less funds to start or invest in businesses. Hence, less jobs.  

Next socialism/communism engages in a process which I`m going to call - More Socialism!!!

Thats right, as jobs move overseas leaving people wondering why they are stuck in low income positions, as the number of jobs declines, as wealth reduces, the socialists/communists are left with a problem to fix. Unable to engage in honest self-reflection, unable to even consciously recognise the underlying cause, and getting ever more bitter at those greedy and corrupt successful people by the minute, they attempt to improve the economic situation with More Socialism!!! Thankfully if they haven`t got their claws too deep into a Democratic society we can vote them out before everything goes belly up. If not the state will either go bankrupt or it will go to war to take someone else`s wealth to prop itself up.

The USSR went bankrupt, 1970s Britain very nearly went bankrupt but we got them out of government just in time, and dont even get me started on oil and resource wars. Now something you don`t want to hear. If we look at the worst conflicts in history we find its the socialists who caused it. They cannot consciously even see that and in order to protect themselves supporting something which is inherently corrupt they recast the guilty as being far right. I dont like using Hitler or the Nazi Party to win a debate but he was from your side not ours. Faced with a harsh economic environment during the 1920s and 1930s the solution of the German people was to go full blown socialism. They openly decided to vote for a government that would go take the resources off other peoples.

And yes, the delusional thinking was present as is typical of socialists/communists - we are morally justified doing this because the Jews caused are defeat, because Darwin`s Theory of Evolution says the strong replace the weak, and because we are super special (the master race). Be warned, while you are not fully there this is where your economic beliefs ultimately end in!!!

Thank God we have a democracy and are wised up to all the left attempts to close it down with cancel culture and removing free speech. I am however a little concerned how they are attempting to use LGBT, identity politics, and stoking the flame of racial injustice to engage in their process of More Socialism!!! I dont even think its followers are even conscious right now of what they are actually up too, although its leaders do as its calculated. 

So yes, the majority of the UK is against inheritance tax. There are enough of us to remember the 1970s to put a quick stop to More Socialism!!! Now all we need to do is dismantle some of it. There is already too much, we need to bring home industries from China.

[pellinore]

3 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

The arguments for socialism/communism are based on self delusion.

I don't think anyone is arguing for either of those. The US is as capitalist a country as you can get, yet they still need taxes. Making taxes fairer is reasonable.

[pellinore]

On 9/30/2023 at 10:37 AM, Essan said:

I barely earn enough to pay income tax

I'm sure that's not true. But if it was, you would still vote for abolishing inheritance tax. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I was just surprised a majority would vote for something they could not only never benefit from, but actually harmed them by removing a source of revenue for public services which would benefit them.

[L.A.T.1961]

I think the dislike of inheritance tax is quite simple, the idea of taking money from the dead seems abhorrent to the average person. Let alone the fact that an estate has been built up on the efforts of an individual or married couple having already paid tax on income historically.

Inheritance Tax liabilities created in respect of the tax year 2020 to 2021 were £5.76 billion. If this money is distributed to the community, after paying management costs, the projects or good causes it supports is small. 

With much of an estates value quite often tied up in a home taxing this, who's value owners have little control of, also looks unfair. 

[Grey Area]

5 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

The arguments for socialism/communism are based on self delusion.

Socialism/Communism are by and large labels people apply to political concepts they are unhappy with.  There is no successful nation that does not apply some form of socialism in some way.

5 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

To begin with people are not created equal. You can give people infinite access to education and the fact remains that most are not intelligent enough to get a degree in their chosen field. Hence, most do not have the capability to function as doctors, solicitors, accountants, IT managers, engineers, physicists, the list goes on.

This is nature vs nurture, you are right in your observation that we are all different and we will all grow up to have different skill sets.  Should everyone not have access to equal education to discover their talent?  And I sense a hint of something creeping out here…

 

5 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

The greater the importance and value of a persons contribution towards society the more we pay them. 

…. Here it is.  Do you truly believe that there is some sort of equality in what we pay people, that higher earning jobs automatically mean some sort of greater contribution to society?

Do you truly believe that the dedicated nurse earning 30k per year contributes less to society than the IT manager on 50k per year because they are paid more?  Or the refuse collectors on 20k per year?  

This is truly blinkered thinking.  Pay is generally decided on the level of responsibility within an organisation, and the amount of work it has taken to reach the required qualification, as well as experience.  Societal contribution has little to nothing to do with it.

5 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

Socialists/communists engage in two psychological processes. The first is lying to oneself that everyone is equally capable and therefore deducing the reason why others have wealth is they must be corrupt.

This is utter elitist rubbish.  There are so many socio-economic factors involved in why one might be more wealthy than another.  And the assumption that the poor see the rich as corrupt is a gross misunderstanding of human nature.

5 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

They must be exploiting the general population to hold them back while keeping the wealth for themselves.

And yet this is proven true time and time again to be the case in not all, but many examples, and if this were not true, tax havens would not be a thing.

6 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

The second is the demonization of the successful as morally bankrupt. This is needed to justify taking money off them. Ah, these immoral scumbags do not deserve their wealth and therefore it is okay to redistribute it away.

Can you give an example of this?  We are talking about taxation here, it’s not the poor that decide fiscal policy, and we currently have a conservative government.  It is the wealthy elite that have set these policies.

6 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

State provided services and benefits have to be paid for. If we tax organisations then it drives up their costs per unit produced making it harder to compete in price sensitive markets.

So abandon the vulnerable and exploit the workforce?

Need I remind you that despite its issues, the U.K. boasts one of the top performing economies in the world, number 6 according to Forbes.

So clearly it’s hard, but doable.

6 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

The result is, and the UK is a perfect example, that you end up with a nation of shop assistants and bankers. The middle income jobs have been gutted as organisations have been forced to move to places like China in order to remain competitive.

Again a gross oversimplification of the issue.

One of the major issues we face as a nation is reconciling the inherent need to be ‘wealthy’ and ‘successful’ vs the absolute requirement for the less desirable jobs.

Your statements embody the issue, where prestige and social standing come before all else.  The IT manager and Doctor are the standards for success.  We have a vicious circle where success is the agent of failure.  There are that many successful people the housing market reflects this and prices out those doing the real work at the very base of societal infrastructure.

We need a drastic redefining of societal success.

6 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

If we tax the wealthy more then they have less funds to start or invest in businesses. Hence, less jobs.

Tax the wealthy more than what?  We are discussing inheritance tax, this is a tax that has been in place for years and no one is talking about increasing it.

 

6 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

Next socialism/communism engages in a process which I`m going to call - More Socialism!!!

Oooh buzz words!  Sexy.

6 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

Thats right, as jobs move overseas leaving people wondering why they are stuck in low income positions, as the number of jobs declines, as wealth reduces, the socialists/communists are left with a problem to fix. Unable to engage in honest self-reflection, unable to even consciously recognise the underlying cause, and getting ever more bitter at those greedy and corrupt successful people by the minute, they attempt to improve the economic situation with More Socialism!!! Thankfully if they haven`t got their claws too deep into a Democratic society we can vote them out before everything goes belly up. If not the state will either go bankrupt or it will go to war to take someone else`s wealth to prop itself up.

Most jobs move overseas because overseas the Labour is cheaper.  Here’s that vicious cycle, country has an overwhelming amount of middle income applicants, prices rise to reflect this and the working class are priced out of the market.  This is all tied into the perception of success.  At some point any responsible government must step in.  I don’t see it at socialism, but more common decency.  Yes there is a price to pay, but how much value do you place on a persons life?

6 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

The USSR went bankrupt, 1970s Britain very nearly went bankrupt but we got them out of government just in time, and dont even get me started on oil and resource wars.

The USSR tried to win an arms race against the USA and Europe.  Got nothing to do with communism really, and it certainly wasn’t because it was looking after the population.

6 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

If we look at the worst conflicts in history we find its the socialists who caused it.

Oooh really?  The First World War was started because of socialism?

And the second also?  Please do not suggest the Nazi’s we’re socialists…

6 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

I dont like using Hitler or the Nazi Party to win a debate but he was from your side not ours. Faced with a harsh economic environment during the 1920s and 1930s the solution of the German people was to go full blown socialism. They openly decided to vote for a government that would go take the resources off other peoples.

You did… Sigh.  You know what they say… If you have to bring up Hitler, you’ve already lost the debate.

6 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

And yes, the delusional thinking was present as is typical of socialists/communists - we are morally justified doing this because the Jews caused are defeat, because Darwin`s Theory of Evolution says the strong replace the weak, and because we are super special (the master race). Be warned, while you are not fully there this is where your economic beliefs ultimately end in!!!

Complete and utter drivel, there are absolutely no parallels to be drawn here between supporting the most vulnerable in society and Naziism.  This is ramblings from a clearly immature and undeveloped world view.

I understand the objections to the UK’s socialist policies, but to compare it to Naziism is ridiculous, bearing in mind much of the policies were introduced during the post war period where Naziism was had just been defeated and we were a button push away from communist Armageddon.

6 hours ago, Electric Scooter said:

Thank God we have a democracy and are wised up to all the left attempts to close it down with cancel culture and removing free speech. I am however a little concerned how they are attempting to use LGBT, identity politics, and stoking the flame of racial injustice to engage in their process of More Socialism!!! I dont even think its followers are even conscious right now of what they are actually up too, although its leaders do as its calculated. 

So yes, the majority of the UK is against inheritance tax. There are enough of us to remember the 1970s to put a quick stop to More Socialism!!! Now all we need to do is dismantle some of it. There is already too much, we need to bring home industries from China.

I can’t be bothered to respond to most of this shizzle, but the highlighted, you see the irony here right?

The U.K. has lost jobs to a communist regime because the U.K. is too socialist?

[Setton]

2 hours ago, pellinore said:

I'm sure that's not true. But if it was, you would still vote for abolishing inheritance tax. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I was just surprised a majority would vote for something they could not only never benefit from, but actually harmed them by removing a source of revenue for public services which would benefit them.

I'd argue that just shows that most people have values, like fairness, above and beyond what benefits them personally.

I have a good friend who's dad left school at 16 and went to work at a local business. 45 years later, he sold the business he built over the years for just over a million. The stress of running it also caused him a heart attack, which his insurance paid out a six figure sum for.

Now why should he, who has paid tax on everything he's earned, not be able to leave that to his children?

[pellinore]

2 hours ago, Setton said:

I'd argue that just shows that most people have values, like fairness, above and beyond what benefits them personally.

I have a good friend who's dad left school at 16 and went to work at a local business. 45 years later, he sold the business he built over the years for just over a million. The stress of running it also caused him a heart attack, which his insurance paid out a six figure sum for.

Now why should he, who has paid tax on everything he's earned, not be able to leave that to his children?

He can. Has anyone suggested he can't? Anyway, I have another true example, of a woman in my town (it made the local news as the social services and courts were involved). She needed terminal care in a nursing home and the local SS made a claim for part of the fees from her house (I think they are allowed to take up to £170k to pay for care). Some years previously she had gifted the house to her daughter in Australia. It went to court because the council claimed she had transferred the title to avoid having to fund her own care fees. Now why should she, who had paid tax on everything she'd earned, not be able to leave that house to her child, and let the local council taxpayers pay for her care? 

Edited October 1, 2023 by pellinore

[Setton]

2 hours ago, pellinore said:

He can. Has anyone suggested he can't?

You have. The threshold is less than he would be leaving. Therefore he'd lose a portion of it to inheritance tax.

[pellinore]

5 hours ago, Setton said:

You have. The threshold is less than he would be leaving. Therefore he'd lose a portion of it to inheritance tax.

And you think that is unfair? I wonder if it would make a difference if the recipients were taxed, rather than the deceased (as some other countries do?)

It has at least answered my original question to my satisfaction - most people think IT is unfair, just on principle, whether it affects them or not.

I'm aways surprised at the number of people who would defend to the death their right to be poor, out of the notion we should all be allowed to keep what is 'ours'. Childless people oppose their taxes being spent on schools and education, healthy people object to their taxes being spent on chronically sick people, even though the overall prosperity of us all depends on a fit and educated population, and most people object to foreign aid even though a stable and functioning developing world helps us all in a global economy.

I think a large part of it is our lived experience-for some people bills are a worry, for others returns on savings and investments are the primary concern.

 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by pellinore

[Setton]

7 hours ago, pellinore said:

And you think that is unfair?

Yes. He paid tax on it when he earned it. Why should he be taxed twice?

[pellinore]

1 hour ago, Setton said:

Yes. He paid tax on it when he earned it. Why should he be taxed twice?

So what? That's less unfair than a layabout being given £10 Million by his parents and a hard worker being given nothing by his. Taxes aren't a law of nature; they are man-made to enable societies to function- hopefully a little fairly.

[Setton]

2 hours ago, pellinore said:

So what? That's less unfair than a layabout being given £10 Million by his parents and a hard worker being given nothing by his. Taxes aren't a law of nature; they are man-made to enable societies to function- hopefully a little fairly.

So because other things in life are unfair, we should inflict more unfairness on those who've made a success of themselves?

[pellinore]

6 hours ago, Setton said:

So because other things in life are unfair, we should inflict more unfairness on those who've made a success of themselves?

It's counter-intuitive, isn't it? You've just echoed the normal response people give towards IT, whether they are affected by it or not. It is the same simplistic thinking that leads people on low incomes to argue that everybody should have income tax reduced or abolished, because it is "their" money. In fact, to promote fairness, IT should be reformed and, obviously, increased. This is not socialism, this is just a fair(ish) way to provide the infrastructure all modern societies need.

12. Inheritance tax as currently designed has only a small impact on the distribution of inheritances received and therefore on intergenerational wealth mobility. The wealthiest fifth of donors will bequeath an average of around £380,000 per child, and pay inheritance tax of around 10% of this amount. By contrast, the least wealthy fifth of parents will leave less than £2,000 per child. To have a larger impact on intergenerational mobility, inheritance tax would have to be substantially expanded in scope.

13. By the time inheritances are received, wealth inequality is already substantial. Inheritances are most often received when people are in their late 50s or early 60s. Around the ages of 50–54, children of the wealthiest fifth of parents have an average of £830,000 in wealth, while children of the least wealthy fifth have on average £180,000. While a reformed inheritance tax could do more to promote intergenerational mobility, big wealth inequalities by parental background already exist before inheritances are received.

Reforming inheritance tax | Institute for Fiscal Studies (ifs.org.uk)

Edited October 2, 2023 by pellinore

[Setton]

12 hours ago, pellinore said:

It's counter-intuitive, isn't it? You've just echoed the normal response people give towards IT, whether they are affected by it or not. It is the same simplistic thinking that leads people on low incomes to argue that everybody should have income tax reduced or abolished, because it is "their" money. In fact, to promote fairness, IT should be reformed and, obviously, increased. This is not socialism, this is just a fair(ish) way to provide the infrastructure all modern societies need.

12. Inheritance tax as currently designed has only a small impact on the distribution of inheritances received and therefore on intergenerational wealth mobility. The wealthiest fifth of donors will bequeath an average of around £380,000 per child, and pay inheritance tax of around 10% of this amount. By contrast, the least wealthy fifth of parents will leave less than £2,000 per child. To have a larger impact on intergenerational mobility, inheritance tax would have to be substantially expanded in scope.

13. By the time inheritances are received, wealth inequality is already substantial. Inheritances are most often received when people are in their late 50s or early 60s. Around the ages of 50–54, children of the wealthiest fifth of parents have an average of £830,000 in wealth, while children of the least wealthy fifth have on average £180,000. While a reformed inheritance tax could do more to promote intergenerational mobility, big wealth inequalities by parental background already exist before inheritances are received.

Reforming inheritance tax | Institute for Fiscal Studies (ifs.org.uk)

You still haven't been able to explain why it's reasonable in the scenario I outlined above.

Should some earl of wherever who made his fortune by his ancestors taking it off someone else at sword point be taxed? Yes. He's never paid tax on that wealth he acquired.

That's not the same as someone who built themselves up from nothing then being told they can't leave their home to their children because the government is going to take a chunk of it. 

You say you support reform to promote 'intergenerational mobility'. How is it meant to be 'intergenerational' if each successful generation has to give a chunk to the tax man?