Same old Tories...

[Les Biehn]

What percentage is paid in inheritance tax? I can understand it staying the same if it say increases steadily with the value of the property, i.e 1% on £300k-400k house, 2% on £400k-600k house, 3% on £600k-1m house and on and on.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Inheritance tax applies to estates over £300k. With house prices where they are I think it's very naive to call this a tax on the wealthy. Why should someone who works hard all their life, pays tax on their income, tax on interest from their savings and stamp duty when purchasing their property then be forced to hand a sizeable chunk back to the government rather than their family when they die? How can this be justified when they have already paid their tax obligations during their life?
I will not be voting Tory but this is a very sensible policy.

So people who die leaving estates worth over £300K are no longer to be considered relatively "wealthy"...? New Labour's economic miracle must be greater than I thought...

 

[Lokki 7]

inheritance tax has more impact because as well as raising revenue it reduces the prevalence of individuals receiving hugely different levels of opportunity (and outcome) based merely on their surname (i.e. nothing to do with their own ability and work - just inherited)

So you would be happy that upon your death, your hard earned wealth would not be given to your kids but instead divided up and dished out in equal measure to all the layabout chavs in your area just to even things up? It's your money, surely you should decide where it goes?

 

[Simster]

That'll explain why the Tories are so popular in the major cities that they manage to get practically NO COUNCILLORS elected.

"Middle England" isn't about 70% of the country. It's about 70% of the home counties. The Tories are unelectable until they can appeal to the citizens of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall ...

Two points. Firstly, it depends on your definition of middle England. My definition is one of someone being financially supported by a wage earner (as opposed to a trust fund or the state) and whose offspring my reasonably be expected to use state education where private education might exist. I'm not sure how you're defining "midde England" but it seems a lot more arbitary to simply chop up the country into cities. And anyway, the Tories have always managed to get elected without the support of most of those areas.

Inheritance tax applies to estates over £300k. With house prices where they are I think it's very naive to call this a tax on the wealthy. Why should someone who works hard all their life, pays tax on their income, tax on interest from their savings and stamp duty when purchasing their property then be forced to hand a sizeable chunk back to the government rather than their family when they die? How can this be justified when they have already paid their tax obligations during their life?
I will not be voting Tory but this is a very sensible policy.

If the tories really gave a f*** about anyone but themselves and if they want to cut any sort of tax, it should be on VAT - which is a tax on the poor and is already criminally high (thanks to the Tories, but not like anyone else has had the appetite to change things).

 

[Hiney]

What percentage is paid in inheritance tax? I can understand it staying the same if it say increases steadily with the value of the property, i.e 1% on £300k-400k house, 2% on £400k-600k house, 3% on £600k-1m house and on and on.

40% on the excess over the threshold, currently £300k

There are loads of exceptions and ways of reducing your potential liability.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

I agree with your first statement Lokki.

Plus, isn't it easier to avoid inheritance tax with multiple benefactors (children) as opposed to a single child?

Should one child face more of a tax burden than multiple children?

 

[Moshe Gariani]

So you would be happy that upon your death, your hard earned wealth would not be given to your kids but instead divided up and dished out in equal measure to all the layabout chavs in your area just to even things up?

is that what happens to tax revenues? they get dished out to layabout chavs...? I would be very happy for inheritance tax to be 100% and for the revenue to be spent on improving the quality of state education.

 

[Badger]

What percentage is paid in inheritance tax? I can understand it staying the same if it say increases steadily with the value of the property, i.e 1% on £300k-400k house, 2% on £400k-600k house, 3% on £600k-1m house and on and on.

Inheritance tax is 40% of anything over about £250,000 so it can work out as a fairly large chunk of money if you've got a house and some savings.

 

[Superphil]

What have they been doing with all the money this has been raising for the past 10 years?

 

[Lokki 7]

So people who die leaving estates worth over £300K are no longer to be considered relatively "wealthy"...? New Labour's economic miracle must be greater than I thought...

My Gran lived in the same council house for the last 30 years of her life. Had she bought it on the cheap under the Tories (she didn't unfortunately) it would now be worth over 300k. I can assure you that she was never wealthy.
Assuming that she had bought it as a home for her children or grand children to live in, she may have been disappointed to discover that on her death they would face a huge tax bill. Quite often the only way to pay this is to sell the family home.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

So, you're all whinging about the inequity of removing inheritence tax, but no mention of the plan to remove all stamp duty on properties under 250k, which would be of most benefit to 1st time buyers and people on lower income.

Odd that eh?

Papa

 

[Lokki 7]

is that what happens to tax revenues? they get dished out to layabout chavs...? I would be very happy for inheritance tax to be 100% and for the revenue to be spent on improving the quality of state education.

Fair play to you. But it could just as easily go a cluster bomb destined for Iraq. Personally I'd rather give it to my family and/or charities of my choice.

 

[Tooting Gull]

Inheritance tax applies to estates over £300k. With house prices where they are I think it's very naive to call this a tax on the wealthy. Why should someone who works hard all their life, pays tax on their income, tax on interest from their savings and stamp duty when purchasing their property then be forced to hand a sizeable chunk back to the government rather than their family when they die? How can this be justified when they have already paid their tax obligations during their life?
I will not be voting Tory but this is a very sensible policy.

Basically, that is it in a nutshell. With house prices the way they are in the south-east especially, many 'non-wealthy' people are being hit hard by inheritance tax who it was not originally intended to deal with. We're not talking landed gentry with estates worth millions, just ordinary people and families.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Inheritance tax applies to estates over £300k. With house prices where they are I think it's very naive to call this a tax on the wealthy. Why should someone who works hard all their life, pays tax on their income, tax on interest from their savings and stamp duty when purchasing their property then be forced to hand a sizeable chunk back to the government rather than their family when they die? How can this be justified when they have already paid their tax obligations during their life?

My mother (who died a couple of years ago, leaving an inheritance tax bill to be paid by my brother and me) always took the view that she wasn't taxed enough during her lifetime and that it was quite OK for the government to tax her when she died.

She benefited enormously from public services. How else can they be provided for, other than through taxation?

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

is that what happens to tax revenues? they get dished out to layabout chavs...? I would be very happy for inheritance tax to be 100% and for the revenue to be spent on improving the quality of state education.

You might be. 95% of the electorate wouldn't.

 

[West Hoathly Seagull]

The tories have never appealed to Manchester, Liverpool and the likes though have they ?....even when they were winning comfortably.

This is not strictly true. Winchester voted Labour in 1945, whereas Manchester Withington was never Labour until 1987, as a result of Mrs Thatcher's unpopularity. Liverpool and Lancashire as a whole were massively Tory in the 19th Century, though that was partly an Orange reaction against Irish immigration. It was Mrs Thatcher who caused the Tories to be so unpopular up North, not the Tory Party in general. The Tories actually gained Liverpool Garston, but lost it in 1983, their only loss in England that year. In 1982 they had 16 councillors in Manchester and 26 in Glasgow (Information provided by boring West Hoathly Seagull BA (Hons) (Politics and History).

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Fair play to you. But it could just as easily go a cluster bomb destined for Iraq. personally I'd rather give it to my family.

As would I - it's going to be hard enough for our kids without taking away the family wealth - after all there won't be any state pension by then, most health care will not be free, and they'll probably have to work until they're 75 before being allowed to take their meagre personal pension... add to that Global Warming (and the associated taxes and restrictions), Global Cooling (due to gulf Stream shut down) and the never ending war on terror it's not looking rosy for them

 

[tedebear]

inheritance tax has more impact because as well as raising revenue it reduces the prevalence of individuals receiving hugely different levels of opportunity (and outcome) based merely on their surname (i.e. nothing to do with their own ability and work - just inherited)

Ok - see your point - I can't agree with it - but I see it...

How would you feel if you had lived your life, done very well out of business you created, owned a modest house, paid your taxes, had your only child join you in the family business. House is worth £350k, business not worth much more...

You die and your son pays tax again on everything you've already paid tax on, does that sound right to you?

What you're talking about is taxing people where the money has been in the family for years, passed down to undeserving snobs to blow up their noses and out into the atmosphere in their expensive cars...

How do you differentiate the taxing of the two?

 

[larus]

It just amazes me that people think that having built a a certain level of wealth through hard-work, that you are now 'rich'.

The Tories are not advocating the removal of inheritance tax, they are proposing the raising of the threshold to a level which reflects the fact that peoples wealth has changed because of house prices.

I hate the idea of double-tax. You have paid tax on your earnings through your life to create wealth, and now because you want to pass your money onto your family the state wants to take another huge slice of your money (which has alradt been taxed).

The people that don't really want to get off their arse and try to make something of themselves may view this as fair (after all, in places like Liverpool, that hotbed of hard-working, honest citizens, the tories can't get many votes), but in other more entrepreneurial places, this view would not be so popular.

Anyway, lets face it, the old political debate regarding left/right going back to the seventies has been won by the right; so much so that Labour is really a center-right party now.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

My Gran lived in the same council house for the last 30 years of her life. Had she bought it on the cheap under the Tories (she didn't unfortunately) it would now be worth over 300k. I can assure you that she was never wealthy.
Assuming that she had bought it as a home for her children or grand children to live in, she may have been disappointed to discover that on her death they would face a huge tax bill. Quite often the only way to pay this is to sell the family home.

there are clearly exceptions but in general if someone has benefited (as many have) from the economic changes of the past couple of decades (increased ownership and soaring property values) - and left an estate worth more than £300K - then they have died as a relatively "wealthy" person...