Inheritance tax

This saying “worked hard all their lives” amuses me. It’s like saying we are rich because we worked hard all our lives, you are not rich so you must’ve been a lazy git ! Jeez if I had a £1 for all the hours DH and I have worked and will continue to work (until we drop) running our business. Keeping people in jobs and wages paid, when we could have creamed much of it off for ourselves? It bugs me that many people equate wealth to hard work when it is quite often not the case at all.

I have said before I have never inherited a penny from anyone , my parents never inherited a penny and neither did their parents . The saying goes that money makes money and it is so true. Short of a lottery win, my children will not inherit anything from me , anything they ever have will be earned and not handed to them on a plate.

gilly, so it is for many. My daughters were brought up in a one parent family. I live in council accommodation. Have given what I can to help my three grandchildren in university, I have no property to leave . My mother in law chose to leave her house and savings to her dead sons daughters, one daughter died so her three children will share what would have been their mother’s. I do not consider this has been handed them on a plate.

gilly you are so right.

Imagine the enormous wealth that the African women would have accumulated if it was down to had work!

Vast wealth that you acquire through nothing other than being someone’s offspring is fine but when it is used to further your own ends at the expense of those who do work jolly hard both at school and in their job, it is neither fair nor healthy for society.

We are not talking "vast wealth" here WW2 and equating it with what happens in Africa is just plain silly.

IT is fine it's just that the starting level should be higher. At £125,000 everyone who owns a property will be paying the tax, is that what the Labour party are about, taxing those who are trying to give their children a better start in life than they had themselves? As I said before the rich will find ways around it - it is the ordinary working class person who will suffer.

It’s a good leg up for them though Anniebach which is great . Nothing to do with who died and when really . I was a single parent too remember . My DD’s father also died very young. He left me, our DD and my son ( he was not my sons father) with nowt. We lived in a council house. Am I bitter ? No of course not . Just saying it’s great if you can give someone a bit of a financial help but many of us can’t .

Am I understanding this correctly?
Someone with one child will be limited to leaving £125,000 minus any life-time gifts.
A person with eight children may leave a total of £1m minus any life-time gifts.

That isn't going to encourage people to have fewer children in an over-populated world, is it?

Or have I misunderstood and it is a total of £125,000 between all children, minus life-time gifts?

Along with their proposed Land Value Tax which will penalise those withy large gardens, this sounds like another potty idea from McDonnell.
Shouldn't those with large gardens be encouraged to turn some of them over to growing vegetables and saving the planet?

I would call him a plonker, but he is in fact dangerous.

Vast wealth
So - anything over £125,000 is vast wealth is it?
Hardly a deposit for a house in some areas.

BTW I don’t necessarily think the £125k figure is right although you could buy a fairly decent house here in the NE for that . Not sure if it means per child ???

I don’t think it’s fully thought through .

I agree with you Callistemon McDonnell is dangerous and has done crack pot ideas ! I wonder if he has fully consulted Len about this ?

Some not done !

Perhaps it was scribbled on the back of an old envelope, gillybob.

gillybob I think you have hit the nail on the head!!! £125,000 would buy a decent house where you are.

Here in the SE you couldn’t buy a one bedroom flat for that amount.

Perhaps any future government could actually do something about regeneration in the NE and parts of the UK which need it!!! Starting with reducing business rates to encourage businesses would be a small step in the right direction.

Legalised theft !!

Why?

No government (Tory or Labour) give a flying fart about the NE GrannyGravy and that’s just the problem isn’t it? Where I live they will jump for joy at the prospect of a Corbyn lead LP government as they will see him as a modern day Robin Hood. Fools.

Until we see some real investment things won’t change much.

Why ? Because you're taxed all your life then even after you're gone the taxman is still hovering------Why ??
All but taxed out of existence. VAT being the worst offender.

It's easy to ask why when money is no object and everything in the garden's lovely-----it's called being smug !!

oldwoman my comment about Africa and hard work and wealth was made to gilly about an entirely separate point than the one under discussion.

The consequences of the enormous disparity in wealth is already being felt by the U.K. with the voter being prepared to vote for more and more political extremes, as a result of what people like gilly identify as being ignored or left behind. People are feeling disenfranchised with their votes being if little use, and so are turning to extreme politics. Brexit is one consequence, and look at the horrendous division and turmoil that has caused.

The problem of wealth inequality is one identified as a real and existential threat to our society and it’s equilibrium.
Nothing has yet been decided with regard to the IT issue so it is pointless discussing figures that don’t yet exist, but the problem of huge wealth disparity does and addressing that is something that needs to be done.

I think with the NHS being sold off before our eyes there won't be much left by the end of the day with the probability of financing private healthcare etc?

Tax is what we pay for a civilised society, and yet in recent years tax has been portrayed in the right-wing media as "evil" to the welfare of all who reside in this country.

However, we all wish to have an excellent health service, free at the point of delivery.

We all wish to see good care provided for our elderly.

We all wish to see excellent standards of education provided for our young.

We all wish to see our country defended adequately and our streets maintained as safe places for us all to use.

The above are just a few examples of what we expect from those who govern us, and there is much more that could be added to the above list. All that can only come from the taxes we all pay, whether that be directly or indirectly.

Therefore if the above means that on the death of my wife and myself our children receive somewhat less from what we bequeath to them, so be it, as at this point in time there are many in our society in much more in need than them.

We all love our children and grandchildren, but a balance must be struck in terms of what is no more than just beneficial to them, and real need in others.

Excellent post, Grandad ?. Thank you.

My thoughts exactly, very good points made Grandad very succinct.

I've never had a problem with paying tax am happy to pay the extra penny in the pound and the higher council tax the SNP have levied.Its great value for money.I see new council houses being built all over my area,roads are being improved.nurses,teachers and police have decent rises and loads of other benefits .
Taxes are a necessity BUT I want to leave my GC enough for a house deposit each ,money for my AC to have life a bit easier than the 72 hour weeks we worked when they were small .If my (Holyrood) government wants to raise my tax again I'm fine with that at least its going where it should not in £150.000 expenses that GOVE took last year or to pay old men to sleep in the H of L.

But but but the IT issue isn’t so much about paying more tax it’s about redistributing wealth. That’s the issue. Wealth is largely contained in assets particularly land.

Vast holdings of agricultural land held by the highly wealthy let’s them off IT. Vast holdings of forested land held by the hugely wealthy the same.

£2bn a year is avoided by such means. Assets like land cannot be moved offshore, that is why it should be subject to a clever tax that helps in wealth redistribution, then used to construct the type of civilised society that grandad described.

It may mean paying more tax but it sure as hell doesnt mean giving tax breaks to the already wealthy.

I think that IT is a pretty unfair method of taxation as it is at present but I am not sure that these suggested changes are any better. As I understand it, my mother, a widow, can leave her allowance and my fathers to her heirs before IT is due, but as a divorcee, I only have my allowance ie half the amount. Presumably that it because my ex is still alive to use his allowance - but his estate will go to his new wife, not our children.

Also, I have three children, so is the proposal £125000 per child, which in my case is higher than the current levels?

Next year there will be another allowance ( up to £75000?) if you own your own house which might improve my tax position.

Although in reality, my mothers money will be used to pay for her care ( she has Alzheimer's) so I doubt there will be much to inherit! I reckon mine will be spent in the same way.

We do need a fairer system, some people do use loopholes to avoid paying these rates of IT although no one will tell me what they are!

WW2 Your posts all relate to the very wealthy, the point I am trying to get across is that having the cut off at £125,000 it will hit those who have managed to buy their own home and are now hoping to make life a little easier for their children and grandchildren. It seems this policy will do nothing to help the working class to improve their lives and would in fact prevent them from doing so.

But you see these are nothing more than ideas at the moment and 10 bob to a pound the figure if £125000 will not be the final figure.

My argument is that vast inequality needs to be tackled, and land wealth seems a good idea.

Of course I love the idea of leaving my estate to the children, but if you have helped them achieve independence and a career you have frankly done your bit. Your wealth may have to be used to care for you. Which is something else I think needs tackling. Social care has become the whipping post for cuts and the NHS has been left to pick up the tab, which it was never intended to do. We need a social care tax.