The future under Corbyn & McDonnell

I will have to read that later as I can't quite get my head around it!

Have some lifetime Christmas gifts to wrap now.

Good for you! Let your friends and family enjoy what you can give them while you're all still alive :-)

Have a read of this

www.theguardian.com/money/2019/jul/05/inheritance-tax-seven-year-rule-on-gifts-could-be-cut-to-five

and tell me what you make of it.

It seems the Office of Tax Simplification already has changes to inheritance tax on the agenda.

Any savings I have have been made with money that I earned and were taxed as I earned it. Should this be taxed again when I die? That's hardly fair. Why bother saving?

Of course it shouldn’t Jane10 but according to Socialism it should.

When you die your money passes to your children, they pay the tax.It happens now you know. Some people have money that isn't earned, shouldn't that be taxed? Socialism provided us with the NHS and the benefit system so thank goodness for it. As for tax wouldn't you be prepared to pay a bit more to see an NHS and a care system that would properly care for you in old age and not make you a burden on your children?

with money that I earned and were taxed as I earned it.

And it is taxed again if you *spend8 it in your lifetime. Do you have the same feeling about VAT or paying duty on wines and spirits, or fuel? Just about everything you buy is taxed...

As it has not been taxed again while you were alive, it's taxed when you're dead. With a very generous tax allowance, too...

Formatting fail again [big sigh]

It isn’t the heirs that pay the tax, it is the estate of the deceased

MissfoodLove You should read right wing journalist Peter Oborne's review of Tom Bower's book.
www.facebook.com/MediaLensUK/posts/this-may-be-the-most-devastating-book-review-youve-ever-read-peter-oborne-is-not/2099285393441939/
Just because something is in print and written in clever language, it does not make it true.

Whitewavemark2 Exactly. It is absurd to call inheritance tax double taxation or a tax paid by the dead. You could say that VAT is double taxation when people pay it out of their already taxed salaries. It would make as much sense.
VAT is regressive as it impacts the poor most. Inheritance tax is progressive as it impacts the rich most.
Tax is paid on income, capital gains or transactions. An inheritance is a tax on the passing of assets (a transaction) and tax in such circumstances is common. It is probably an unpopular idea but I also think that lottery wins over a certain amount, say £5m so that people can still get a fortune tax free, would be reasonable. It makes more sense for windfalls to be taxed than purchases or payment for services.

if you want to see what can happen and how a country can grow and thrive under a left wing government, then take a look at Portugal. They were on their knees a few years ago under an austerity based Conservative model. Okay, not everything is perfect now but the general population is doing a whole lot better than they were.

What I don't understand is how most posters here see a Corbyn led government as dangerous. Dangerous how? What are they going to do that's dangerous? Make tax dodging corporations like Google and Amazon pay their taxes? Invest properly in the NHS and not hive it off to American asset strippers? Ensure that women who have been shamefully cheated out of their pensions get justice?

Mind you, people can vote for whomsoever they choose in my view, I just find it really hard to see how someone would choose a band of Johnson led pocket liners with their self entitled policies based on naked greed to lead them. That's what I think is dangerous.

Jaycee5 I also think that lottery wins over a certain amount, say £5m so that people can still get a fortune tax free, would be reasonable. I don't understand your logic - you think it's OK to tax ordinary working class people who may inherit a few hundred thousand pounds as proceeds from their parents' property, which would have been paid for from their parents' taxable income, but you set the bar at £5m before tax should be paid on a lottery win? How about setting the bar at £5m inheritance tax then? What's the difference? I would suggest those inheriting from their parents are far worthier of a tax free payment, than those winning the lottery. And inheritance tax doesn't just "impact the rich most" - try telling that to working class people who stand to inherit from their parents - they certainly don't class themselves as "rich"!

Socialism provided us with the NHS and the benefit system so thank goodness for it. As for tax wouldn't you be prepared to pay a bit more to see an NHS and a care system that would properly care for you in old age and not make you a burden on your children?

Yes, absolutely trisher
That is why I think that our tax rate is a bit too low and we should be paying at least a couple of pence more in the £ when we're alive because that is when we are benefiting from these services.
Taking it from the estate of a deceased person is dishonest and distasteful.

Opal I would be happy for it to be set lower but people are winning over £100m tax free and that seems absurd. £5m was really just thrown out as a suggestion not a firm belief on the basis that people are used to paying nothing and it is nice for poor people to have a chance to make easy money too. I certainly didn't 'set a bar' - hence my use of the word 'say'. That should have made it clear that I was just opening it up for discussion.
I also did not mention a figure for inheritance tax. I was talking about the incorrect interpretation of tax as double taxation or 'tax payable by the dead'.
Of course not everyone who inherits is rich and I would personally not reduce the threshhold - but they are receiving a windfall.
Why the antagonistic tone? It would be nice just to be able to chat about concepts.

you think it's OK to tax ordinary working class people who may inherit a few hundred thousand pounds

What world are you living in, Opal, where 'ordinary working people' manage to save 'a few hundred thousand pounds'?

Almost half the working population in the UK doesn't earn enough to pay income tax, let alone save a few hundred thousand quid to leave to their heirs...

Only some 4% of estates of deceased people pay inheritance tax...

www.sproullllp.co.uk/how-many-people-actually-pay-inheritance-tax/

Jaycee5
Thank you for the link re Tom Bowers book.
It is in fact a link for something called the Punkin Poops ????

MD I'm living in the world where millions of working class people in this country have bought their own homes and will at some point be in a position to leave their homes to their children in their Estate. Ordinary 3 bedroom houses where I live are currently in the region of £300-400,000, hence my estimate.

Your quote of 4% will go up enormously if the Labour party reduce the inheritance tax rate to £125,000.

Thank you for being the voice of reason (and for your support) upthread Anniebach
?

If the Labour was the Labour Party that it used to be then I'd be more likely to vote for it. It should be renamed the Momentum party.

Jane10.

Momentum have insidiously crept in.
Although I’m not a labour voter ( John Smith would have received my vote though!) I have seen the good MP’s they have tried to deselect.
Momentum are dangerous.

How are Momentum dangerous Missfoodlove?

They have tried to deselect good experienced MPs and introduce Marxist philosophies which have never worked.

Would you like to name these MPs Jane10?
Are there as many as the 21 Tories who lost the whip and would have been unable to stand? www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/news/106279/twenty-one-tory-rebels-lose-party-whip

Opal You contradict yourself. People with homes over the inheritance tax threshold haven't earned the capital in their homes. They have been lucky that an asset has increased in value, but it hasn't been the result of "hard work", which you're so keen claim. Even now, it is only a minority of estates on which inheritance tax is paid.

Inheritance does benefit the wealthiest most. This all sounds like the idiot on Question Time who claimed he earns over £80k a year, but isn't in the highest earning 5%. Wrong!

I won't be shedding any tears for the children of the wealthy who have to pay inheritance tax. I'll save my tears for the parents of children who can't afford to provide them with the basics.