Inheirtance tax of 10%

The devil is always in the detail with IHT. Immediate questions: would you retain tax-free transfer between spouses? Would you start from a very low base? How low?

I think it's a good proposal, which probably means nothing will happen. If it was payable on any estate worth more than £10,000 and the proceeds were directed into better social care funding, it would knock a sizeable hole in the tax avoidance industry.

You could have a de-minimis limit of say £5k to avoid that.

I think it's a brilliant idea and have suggested it many times on MN. It would destroy the IHT tax avoidance industry/trusts etc in an instant as it wouldn't be worth people paying huge amounts to save a relatively small amount of tax.

IHT planning was very busy last year with Reeve's stupid changes which often meant HMRC would get less rather than more as people took evasive action to reduce/avoid IHT where previously the amounts were relatively small and not worth paying for IHT planning measures.

A low rate of something like 10% on everything is hardly worth bothering about when it comes to doing fancy tricks with wills, trusts, offshore investments, artificially buying business assets, etc.

Just what we need. Though I doubt Burnham will do it. It doesn't play into Labour's politics of envy, hate and spite as "ordinary" people would have to pay a bit of tax, and the media will label it as a tax reducer for the "rich" (which it isn't!).

I think it’s more that people wouldn’t take avoidant measures years ahead if it was 10%. The rules would still be there, but people wouldn’t be jumping though hoops to avoid them.

The opposite, I think- everything you give away would be within your estate even if 7 years have passed. Sounds impractical.

There would probably need to be a low minimum amount or else it could create unnecessary form filling for people that only leave enough for a funeral

I think it's a good idea and it would be politically do-able if it were coupled with nationalising care

Speaking selfishly, as the daughter of someone who’s made no effort at all to be tax efficient, this would cheer me up no end! He’d cross the road to pick up a penny, and has deep pockets and short arms. Costs his grandkids money to visit him, basically. He’ll die very rich, and save me a lot of money just by not needing me to do things for him a lot!
I’d make a hefty, cheerful donation to charity if this came in.

No 7 year rule

So someone can give everything away on their death bed? Or am I reading that wrong?

I agree that if the rate is more reasonable there is far less incentive to bother legally avoiding. 40 per cent is far too high. I think there could be a problem if it forces those with estates at the lower end to have to sell to pay the tax whereas now there is none payable. Perhaps this could be got round by having an exempt band of £325k lol.
I suspect with Burnham the 10 per cent will be higher for larger estates and that being the case we will be back to people using legal avoidance measures.
In summary I would not seek to avoid a 10 per cent tax whereas the thought of 40per cent incenses me.

I'll be very surprised if this happens.

I would love that but it doesn't sound very Labour