Should We Get Rid of Inheritance Tax?
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Should we get rid of Inheritance Tax?
Grant Shapps has called it 'punitive and unfair' "People know that there's something deeply unfair about being taxed all their lives and then being taxed in death as well," he said.
Source: buff.ly/3LyTH44.
Taxed all your life, then taxed even more when you die, isn't democracy great "Not"
Yes I believe inheritance tax is unfair especially when you’ve done the right thing all your life. Work, buy your own home, never been reliant on benefits etc etc.
Something that affects 4% of the population. Ask yourselves who is railing against this, the unelected Prime minister for one who's family could save £300 million by its abolition.
Yes and no. I don't think all inheritance should be taxed, but I do think once you get up to over several hundreds of thousands, it should be taxed. Anything over one million should be very heavily taxed. If people are paying 22% income tax while earning a pittance, I just can't see how you can justify getting millions for nothing when your mega-rich parents pop their clogs.
Anything we can do to funnel some of that wealth away from the 1% and into something that benefits the rest of us is a positive in my book.
I think it should stay BUT only for people who have assets of over £5 million - ordinary people shouldn't have to pay anything.
100% percent get rid. The money has already been taxed. At least the main home should be free of iht. Forcing people out of their main home because they have to sell it is disgraceful. Maybe it could stay if money/property is going to non family/dependants.
Mahharg unless you're mega rich and you keep all of your wealth in offshore accounts on the Cayman Islands, and in material assets like property abroad. Then you haven't been taxed at all. And when you die, you can give all that tax-free money to your little trust fund kids, who can do the same thing again. Taking everyone's wealth and giving nothing back.
I wonder who could benefit from a system like this? Surely not the people in government advocating for such a system? Rishi stands to inherit 300M from his family when they expire. Wonder how much tax was paid on that? We already know his wife was living here and paying no UK tax.
This is just another obvious ploy to keep the wealth with the wealthy, and keep the poor in poverty.
Get rid. The very rich don’t pay it anyway, because they work the system and know the loopholes.
Ideally we would get rid of it but as with everything I don't think the answer is a 'one size fits all'. I have worked all my life until retirement and everything I have I have worked for and been taxed one way or another - I don't think it's right to be taxed yet again. I can understand that the Treasury needs this income but I feel the tax should only be applied on estates over £1m and after that the start threshold should increase with inflation.
I have just looked up the level at which it starts.......It is £325,000. What I didn't realise is that it is not just your house but the total of all your assets and anything above that amount is taxed at 40%.
As we are anonymous to each other I don't mind telling you that my house was recently valued at £330,000. I don't own anything else of value except a car which will probably be worthless by the time I croak it. I have never earned more than 25k, raised two sons alone, didn't have holidays abroad, didn't smoke, drink or possess jewellery of value. I have had a life of ups and downs like most people but have only had a couple of times when things were dire. I worked from 15 to 70, never claimed benefits and always paid my way, no credit, if I couldn't afford it I didn't have it.
My house will probably go up in value significantly before my death but having paid lots of interest, taxes etc I feel very strongly that I owe no one anything having taken nothing.
My home is in a run down area but is commuting distance to London. So, I ask, why should 40% of anything I own over 325k go to anyone other than my family? Does inheritance tax take account of the fact that my house would be worth far less up North for example.
I still have to watch the pennies and will never benefit from a lifetime of hard work so surely it is not too much to expect my sons to inherit as I raised them to be self sufficient and they too have never claimed any benefit, nor their children.
My point is that the threshold should be raised significantly to reflect the high cost of housing these days, let those who have become rich and elite off the backs of us plebs pay for their wealthy lifestyles after death.
Keep the tax - but raise the threshold before you start to pay it. They are only talking about it as they can see big savings for the really rich who are the ones they really want to look after.
You get taxed on it it all throughout life so why should we be taxed as it changes hands..you'll be paying tax on it til you die anyway. It's cruel
Peolke don't get "taxed in death" Emotive slogan by vote-seeking politician. It's the beneficiaries in the will who lose out. And there's a £325k allowance before it has to be paid - double for a susviving spouse. If you live in the house (eg son/daughter caring for parent) , that is excluded from estate - you don't get "turfed out" to pay the tax. I'd sooner pay Inheritance Tax than see Income Tax rise for all. Money has to come from somewhere
It will mean a drop in tax revenue for the government of billions per year and only really benefits the rich. If you raised the threshold a bit more maybe set it at half a million. That might be fairer compromise. Why are we even considering removing a tax that will mainly benefit the rich? This is another tax that really hits the rich just like the old rates system which was abolished. Is this really the time for making the rich richer?
People talk about taxing billionaires more but all you can really do is add a few pence to income tax and that brings in very little as billionaires are assessed by their assets mainly of which may be fixed like property or companies not liquid capital. A billionaire may only get £30 million a year as wages and an increase of 5p in the £ won't bring in a huge amount of revenue as there are only 170 billionaires in the UK and many of those are here because of low taxation so will leave as soon as we increase it so we may actually get less tax revenue by increasing the income tax rate. However if you have a £10 million pound home and the person dies you can see just on that one property it brings in £4 million. What if a rich person does with a portfolio of property worth £200 million that is £80 million bought in.
It's a very effective way of taxing the super rich and also easy to collect. Why do we want to lose that?
This does remind me of the old rates system. Rich people paid a lot, lot more for local services because rates was directly related to the value of the property and because it was a tax on the property itself it had a extremely low evasion rate because properties can't move. So it was cheap to collect and provided huge income from the rich. It also motivated people to live in small homes and use less space. So if you could live with 20 people in one property you paid for less tax which was great for the poor struggling to make ends meet. It was the most environmental way of paying for local services. Rich people always had the option to live in smaller homes to avoid higher rates if they wanted to.
Removing the rates system also created the situation of many rich people having second homes in places where there are housing shortages like Cornwall and Wales creating housing problems for local people.
A return to the rates system would also provide more income for councils who are struggling at the moment many of which risk bankruptcy.
The point is we need to stop and think about removing taxes that are mainly paid by the rich and super rich. What are the long term ramifications of this. If you remove this tax there could be other negative effects like the rates system. I personally would go with the status quo but just increase the threshold a little bit. So a small benefit to the rich but a big benefit to the vast majority of poorer people and no need to increase other taxes as much to pay for the shortfall in taxes.
BonzoBanana I am not rich....see my comment above. It needs to be raised far higher. Both my sons are ordinary working guys, not rich, but both their house will probably be worth half a mill before they die. Why should they not leave to their own kids who will probably not manage to even get on the housing ladder.
Lynibis My point is not getting rid of it altogether. I am for raising the threshold as entry level house prices increase. If we just abolish the tax the tax burden will likely be moved somewhere else which is likely to have a far greater effect on low income people. The inheritance tax is exactly the right tax to get richer people to pay more tax.
BonzoBanana yep I get you. It has to kick in at a level that is above the value of a working class family home. They can then rest easy for their kids.
I’m no expert but i believe it’s in place to stop a small minority controlling most of the wealth, however it’s clearly not working and the super rich know how to dodge it anyway.
My personal opinion would be to raise the tax threshold as house properties in my area are mostly above the £325 anyway.
Yes. It's unfair on those receiving the inheritance especially as they tend to have lost a loved one
Absolutely Yes!! We get hammered with tax for absolutely everything. This life is getting harder and harded
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