If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Essential support for under 25s
Essential support for under 25s
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
On the other hand its essentially a tax in favour of a meritocracy, because it evens out the playing field.
It`s only disgusting and indefensible if the idea of armed robbery is disgusting and indefensible.To me it is, so I`m in agreement with you.
That`s got to get the redundant adjective of the year award
Also, is it fair that according to new rules, if I inherit a property but for reasons relating to my job or study, I have to remain somewhere else for six months, the local council can take over management of my home and do as they please?
Indeed, inheritance tax is evidently extremely unfair against those in London and the South East. The very existence of inheritance tax is unacceptable but if it is to exist at the very least it should be a variable tax so London and the South East are not disproportionably affected. Yet again really it's a case of London and the South East footing the bill and the North paying very little.
Taxing inheritance is far less immoral than income tax, and is certainly less immoral than taxes on goods and services, which always directly and disproportionately attack the poor.
If you have a large enough asset portfolio to become eligible for a lot of inheritance tax, then you are rich enough to foot the bill. I honestly don't see why people are so upset about it all, because the estate is being taxed, not little spoilt Henry.
Even in London, £285,000 is a lot of money. And it was an interesting survey recently that showed Londoners are forced to spend less of their earnings on essential bills than the citizens of at least ten other cities.
Why is the existence of inheritance tax immoral, but not taxing someone 17.5% for tampons, regardless of whether they earn £10,000 or £1,000,000? It's infinitely fairer than other forms of tax, and it directly targets those who can afford it- the estates of the rich.
Though dis, if you want to pay the extra 10p on income tax, you go for it. But I don't see why my tax bill should go up just so that some rich little twat doesn't lose a bit of his daddy's legacy.
In the South East and London in plenty of ordinary areas a modest family home; a 3 bedroom semi or terrace for example will be worth well over £285,000.
Well tbh all tax is immoral. It's unfortunately a necessary evil but the immoral taxes you speak of should be cut.
You really have no idea whatsoever and to talk about inheritance tax merely affecting the upper class is absolute bollocks. The truly rich have the money to hire expensive accountants and exploit every loophole there is - it's ordinary people that are affected the most. Someone I know for instance, a bloke in his 40s; works full time at a supermarket and for whatever reason he didn't marry and lived with his elderly mother. She had a modest 3 bed semi, worth well over £285,000 - she died, her son couldn't afford the inheritance tax bill so had to sell the house. His mother wanted him to live in that house, the guy in question has a few problems and neither him or his mother were 'rich.' She worked full time as a nurse for her entire life, it was when she got it a modest house - property prices have since gone up...
When did someone stacking shelves in a supermarket become rich? Or a nurse?
You're twisting the facts and you're so blinded by your hatred of middle or upper class bogeymen that you can't seem to get past the fact that inheritance tax affects lots of ordinary people. And regardless, even if somebody 'rich' does work hard and get a nice house they should be able to pass it on to their loved ones...Forcing children to sell the family home to pay the death tax bill is wrong.
And income tax need not go up another 10p; we could abolish inheritance tax, and sharply cut income tax if we had the sense to withdraw from the EU saving billions, reform welfare and ruthlessly cut government bureaucracy and waste.
How true, and it's certainly not restricted to down South.
I live in a fairly average suburb of Leeds and there's typical family homes up for sale at over £300,000.
I've no objection to the rich paying inheritance tax, I do however think it completely unjust that ordinary people should be penalised due to their property trebling in value over 10 years and the tax boundaries not rising to keep pace with the property market.
Funny how gifts to your children or whatever are still charged if you die too soon yet donations to political parties aren't
As other people have already said there are various ways rich people can avoid the tax such as placing stuff in a trust or suchlike.
Yet if you live in a 3 bed semi in London or even Leeds by the sound of it you could pay thirty or forty grand in inheritance tax whereas if you live in a cheap part of the North East you probably won't pay a penny. While in some parts of the country living in a £340,000 house might equate to being rich it sure as hell isn't in London.
Inheritance tax is regionally biased. In London there might be a family, where the father is a teacher for example - say they live in a £340k house, well it's perfectly possible that another teacher on the same wage in the NE (minus London weighting) would live in a £285k house. The latter might have a bigger house and the lower cost of living would surely mean the teacher in the NE is better off. Yet it's the guy in London whose family will get a thirty or forty grand bill. How can that be fair?
I don't care how much people bleat about property prices, £300,000 in assets is still a lot of money, and the tax bill isn't going to cripple anyone. Most people have more than one benefactor anyway, in which case the assets have to be sold.
I certainly don't think its a case of the north scrounging off the south- after all, the reason why prices are higher is because there are more jobs paying more money down there.
Taxing the estates of the rich is perfectly justifiable, and the income from inheritance tax needs to come from somewhere if it is abolished. On a balance between 5p on income tax, cutting money from already floundering public services, and making the estates of the wealthy dead pay tax, I'd definitely choose the latter.
After all, if every house in London was worth more than the cut-off, surely more than 37,000 estates would pay it every year?
Maybe keep it on money assets, maybe, but thats all.
You mean you paid your mortgage. Whoop-de-doo.
Good work genius
Personally, i would let all the rich keep their wealth if it meant i got to keep my house!
I have yet to hear a decent argument against it.
Your parents estate won't get to keep the house when income tax goes up by 8% in order to plug the £4bn gap in the budget. And what good is a house when the local school and hospuital go bankrupt because there's not enough money in the pot.
But at least you are good enough to admit that you are only against this tax for your own personal self-interest.
London or not London, £300,000 is a lot of money.
You have a moral duty to do, if you can.
Apply that morality universally in your mind right now. Don`t forget to have the sick bag by your side.
£300,000 is a lot of money in your hand but most certainly NOT when it comes to buying a house. My house is worth more than £300,000 and it is a small terrace, it's that expensive purely because we happen to live on the outskirts of London where prices are rocketing. Less than five years ago this house was worth £215,000. Fourteen years ago it was worth £90,000. How does that work out to a fair tax if we're being penalised for living in the wrong area?
Besides, both of my parents were teachers and all teachers are paid the same - anywhere in the country, except for the London allowance which was barely an additional £4,000 per annum, hardly enough to counter the increased cost of living. It just happens that they live where we do because my mum was brought up in council accomodation closer to the centre and then moved out to a slightly nicer area with better schools for me and closer to her mum in Southend.
My parents are not affluent, they have an okay standard of living - I fail to see how it's fair to make a tax out of 'living too close to the capital'.
I have no objections to inheritance tax per se... I just feel that the threshold needs to be increased significantly, it needs a regional scale determined on average house prices for the area that is adjusted annually... and someone needs to close ALL of the legal loopholes so that the rich can't dodge it. It's fair that people with huge assets have to pay. It's not fair that average middle class people should be penalised for where they live.
That gets to keep things which may have sentimental value in the family.
frickin buy to let
and jsut so you are aware i live in east london and we are selling a 2/3 bedroom house for approx 220k
and REMEMBER that 40% only applies on the value over 300k, so if you leave a total of 400k, only 40k gets taken; on 350k you pay 20k
Got a point petal, or are you just a stupid Smoggy moron?
The level the tax is set at doesn't make the tax inherently unfair. It is set a little bit too low, but not too low, even now very few people pay the tax.
One way of changing it may be to ensure that inheritance tax is exempt from the family home, but any additional property is taxed at a much much higher rate to cover the difference. I'm all for taxing landlords 100% to be quite honest, and people who have holiday cottages in the Lake District could probably do with a 500% tax to cover the cost of their selfish ways.
My parents have fucking worked their asses off, and make no secret that it's all for me and my brother. So we could live a comfortable life, and so we won't have to worry about finances until we're settled ourselves. That said, they're not rich or swimming in money in any way whatsoever.
They have paid taxes their whole lives, my dad paying well over 50% if not over 60%, and then people claim it's fair that he should be taxed once he's gone from this world? Where's the fair in that?
People who have money, have usually worked for it. And if it isn't them, then it's their parents or grandparents, but someone along the line has sacrificed time and effort, and I can't see why their descendants should pay for their drive.
Fair enough if you're anti-tax, like dis is, but to be in favour of fixed rate taxes on goods and services and not in favour of a tax on the estate of a dead person is bizarre at best.
And the reason why inheritance tax was brought in all those years ago still stands now- it is to stop the richest families hoarding all their wealth.
That's just you placing statements in people's mouths
Though to be quite frank, rather pay 40% of my wages at the most, than well over 60%...
Another thing with income tax is that at least you have a chance of getting back from the state, while you're paying it - so it's not for nothing.
Inheritance tax is as others have said, getting taxed twice.
But it's isn't "free" money now, is it?
I earn an income and I pay 40% tax on it. What's left I invest in my house and pay a tax when I buy it, then I leave it to my kids and they get taxed too... something smells there.
Which they have already paid tax on [usual loopholes apply]...
Maybe cos that money is being taxed TWICE?
to keep the numbers simple use your 40% example
you earn £10,000 lets say and pay 40% tax
leaves you with £6,000
You die and leave that to your kids
and pay another 40%
it's now worth £3600
Seems like a tax on death to me. And dying these days is pretty expensive as it is with burial costs.
If it only hit the richest no-one would be complaining.
The point is it's starting to hit 'normal' families....