[Finance] Rachel Reeves to reveal £20bn shortfall left by Conservative Government

[Is it PotG?]

World of work has changed. Millions of people do work hard - they have to in order to keep their jobs and hit 'performance targets' - but their wages and salaries don't increase to reflect their hard(er) work.

The only people who benefit from you or I working harder are our bosses and/or shareholders.

The idea that hard work = wealth and success, and that being poor = laziness, is just lazy (offensive) Right-wing propaganda intended to denigrate the poor, and put the rich on a pedestal; to justify obscene inequality.

Do you know that 48% of people who claim welfare benefits are in paid employment, but their wages are so low, that they can claim financial support to survive. Do their low wages mean that they are lazy - or that their employers are not paying them properly?

Whether true or not, penalising those who have scrimped and saved to purchase a family home when they pop their clogs is not the way forward.

 

[BenGarfield]

I though you once said we can ignore inflation by printing more money?

I`ve never said that. A nation with its own currency can spend as much as it likes but is limited only by the physical capacity of the economy in terms of real resources and inflation.

 

[Bodian]

The house is legally owned by the owner and has been paid off at some point by parents.
I’m talking about an average house in an average street in Sussex, who when it’s time to pass on the family home to our kids, who we’ve lived their formtiave lives in that house, I don’t want them, when they sell it, to lose an even bigger chunk to the government. We’ve paid, NI, PAYE, car tax, etc on everting we buy our whole life, and we then have to make our children pay IHT on assets we have worked hard for when we die?
Why should they? It’s no ones money apart from theirs, if we say it is, as it is our asset!!

Children

I think you miss the point I was making. You pass your house that you have worked hard for on to your children - and you feel your children shouldn't have to pay IHT on that. That's one thing.

But what I was asking was about your children. They will then have a house that they haven't worked hard for. Fine - lucky them.

But when they die - what are your views? Your children haven't 'worked hard' for the house you left them, so do you think it is then fair that your grandchildren should get a huge untaxed windfall - or do you think it it right that they should pay some tax on what is effectively an unearned asset that neither they nor their parents 'worked hard' for?

Please don't deflect the question on a basis that it's a long time away or something - because many people are in this position right now - that is, grandchildren of the first home owners.


As to average house in an average street in Sussex, I guess you know that IHT is only payable on the amount over and above the threshold - not the whole lot? In which case it's likely to be pretty minimal. Unless your view of 'average' is different from mine?

 

[BBassic]

I hate it when people still refer to things like ‘the class system’, not least because this tends to perpetuate it when 99% of people have long moved on.
BUT I think your last statement is spot on. IHT never hurts the people who worked hard to earn their ‘estate’, only those who might inherit it but have done nothing to earn it. Seems fair to me.

Not to derail but there's a very good book about class in the 21st Century, if you're interested in that sort of thing:

Social Class in the 21st Century

A fresh take on social class from the experts behind the BBC's 'Great British Class Survey'. Why does social class matter more than ever in Britain today? How has the meaning of class changed? What does this mean for social mobility and inequality? In this book Mike Savage and the team of...

www.penguin.co.uk

 

[Guinness Boy]

Dancing is free, take 200k of the wine bill and that leaves you with 400bn to pay country’s wages
My point is, any government would have had to spend b’ns to keep the country afloat at that time.
That money would have been borrowed and would have to have been paid back:

Since it was four years ago shouldn’t the Tories have put up taxes even more to pay off the debt within the term of the Parliament?

Surely we’d have all understood?

 

[Rdodge30]

Which area would your bet be then?

Capital Gains Tax - Corporation Tax

 

[LamieRobertson]

Since it was four years ago shouldn’t the Tories have put up taxes even more to pay off the debt within the term of the Parliament?

Surely we’d have all understood?

Interesting point….which taxes though?

I’m assuming not those such as income tax….national insurance….your average person being hit by increasing electricity/gas costs amongst other things…higher interest rates on borrowing wouldn’t have been that happy

 

[Machiavelli]

Whether true or not, penalising those who have scrimped and saved to purchase a family home when they pop their clogs is not the way forward.

96%* of those that do that won't be paying a penny. If you're one of the 4% then I'll be delighted that your spawn have to hand over some money to the state.

* the figure is actually lower than 96% but not by a considerable amount

 

[worthingseagull123]

Well what a suprise, Labour having to raise taxes !!!
Standby for ULEZ in every city etc etc

They cannot do that without a national scrappage scheme.

That would cost tens of billions.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Interesting point….which taxes though?

I’m assuming not those such as income tax….national insurance….your average person being hit by increasing electricity/gas costs amongst other things…higher interest rates on borrowing wouldn’t have been that happy

Why not income tax? As @Greenbag50 acknowledges the debt was huge and necessary.

And those interest rates? High because Liz The Lettuce did indeed fiddle with tax. She cut it

 

[beorhthelm]

Capital Gains Tax - Corporation Tax

not helpful when wanting billions of investment. i expect targeting pension relief on high rate tax payers, which doesn't hurt their core and targets only higher income earners. easy £10bn.

 

[nevergoagain]

They didn't work their guts down to give it to me tax free. I probably will inherit and probably more than the average, but friggin hell I should pay tax on it. Why should I receive privilege when some inherit very little

They've already paid tax on it though?

 

[LamieRobertson]

Why not income tax? As @Greenbag50 acknowledges the debt was huge and necessary.

And those interest rates? High because Liz The Lettuce did indeed fiddle with tax. She cut it

So….just coming out of a pandemic ..business and consumer confidence battered let alone moral ….followed on by mortgage rates increasing ….domestic bills increasing and you think the public would have accepted without question income tax going up? Wow lol……let alone what that would have done to the fragile economy ..hmmm

Truss didn’t cut any taxes she didn’t get the chance….sure she destabilised the money markets …and part of the cost of our debt is down to her but then a certain amount has to be down to the Bof E misjudging inflation for transitory rather than sticky and not shoving up rates earlier …still one thing Truss and Reeves have in common is the call for growth…..the latter has communicated this to the markets far better…now we await to see how it will be achieved

 

[Gwylan]

They cannot do that without a national scrappage scheme.

That would cost tens of billions.

Yeah, ULEZ is not a revenue-raising scheme, the aim is to improve health and reduce carbon emissions.

There may be more pedestrian zones however

 

[WATFORD zero]

Whether true or not, penalising those who have scrimped and saved to purchase a family home when they pop their clogs is not the way forward.

Scrimping and saving from a position where you have absolutely nothing, having to leave full time education at the first opportunity to bring income into a struggling single parent family in social housing and then from there, scrimping and saving in order to buy a family home is very hard work indeed.

To get from that position to one where you have managed to amass assets of significantly over £1M and leaving your kids liable to pay any inheritance tax in a single generation takes continual hard work and a not insignificant amount of luck.

If my kids were in the position of inheriting all that through pure luck of birth, I really wouldn't begrudge some others also benefiting the way they have

 

[BrightonCottager]

96%* of those that do that won't be paying a penny. If you're one of the 4% then I'll be delighted that your spawn have to hand over some money to the state.

* the figure is actually lower than 96% but not by a considerable amount

This. Latest government statistics are that 3.73% of estates paid IHT https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...mentary/inheritance-tax-statistics-commentary

As stated above, I'm selling my mum's house to pay for her care home costs. It has appreciated hugely in value because it was bought in 1969! Because she's 'downsized', the Residential Nil Rate Band continues. If there's money left when she does go then I may have to pay IHT and grin and bear it. What pisses me off isthe really rich can set up trust funds to avoid IHT (although this is getting harder to do apparently).

 

[LamieRobertson]

Scrimping and saving from a position where you have absolutely nothing, having to leave full time education at the first opportunity to bring income into a struggling single parent family in social housing and then scrimping and saving in order to buy a family home is very hard indeed.

To get from that position to one where you have managed to amass assets of significantly over £1M and leaving your kids liable to pay any inheritance tax in a single generation takes continual hard work and a not insignificant amount of luck.

If my kids were in the position of inheriting all that through pure luck of birth, I really wouldn't begrudge some others also benefiting from that the way they have

Good points…..where in your opinion should the threshold start…or has that already been stated

Ps can’t say I know much about IHT as it’ll never be personally relevant

 

[Jimmy Grimble]

Maybe they could aspire to work hard to emulate those who started with nothing yet earned and saved to buy a home.

Do you realise how much of a pisstake that is to the vast majority of people aged 20-40 who will never own a home despite working hard?

Just look at @Weststander’s posts on this thread.

You’re clueless.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Good points…..where in your opinion should the threshold start…or has that already been stated

Ps can’t say I know much about IHT as it’ll never be personally relevant

The published figure is £325,000 but practically for a couple it's £1M. This is a good explanation

Give this a read if you're loosing it about IHT.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/inheritance-tax-planning-iht/

 

[Bozza]

And those interest rates? High because Liz The Lettuce did indeed fiddle with tax. She cut it

I'm no fan of Liz Truss, clearly - who is? - but is the "interest rates are high because of Liz Truss" really true? Her budget was a disaster, obviously, but if I compare UK interest rates with elsewhere, many countries experienced similar rate rises at the same time. Doesn't this indicate some sort of broader global factor(s) at play?

(Again I'll reiterate I'm not defending the abysmal Liz Truss, but is she to blame for interest rates rising globally at the same time?)