What tax do you most hate

[Taxta]

I’m torn between stamp duty and inheritance tax.

I think inheritance should be higher tbh. Unearned windfalls are a huge driver on inequality.

Id rather receive less inheritance but have higher income tax bands & lower stamp duty. I need money now

I think this is where we are at cross wires.

That isn't protecting the estate, that is given the estate away and using the 7 year rule.

People say IHT but it's one of the easiest taxes to avoid. Honestly, just a bit of sensible planning is all that's needed and you'll be absolutely fine.

Its wrong to get others to pay for your care to protect inheritance.

But if you have been frivolous all your life it's ok to expect the state to pay for it?

SDLT is a disaster. One which our already completely unfit for purpose housing market can’t really stand for much longer as formulated. When a family moving to their (only property) forever home is looking at a tax bill in the very several tens of thousands for the privilege something is seriously amiss.

Someone I know desperately wanted to move into her childhood home. They could just about afford the leap, but couldn’t afford it on top of the loan to pay IHT, IHT interest and cost of stamp duty for second home prior to theirs being sold. It was a sudden death. They desperately needed an extra bedroom, but even with the IH gained, can’t get one within their range now (south east). Sibling would wait for her to be ready but she would have needed to cover his IHT and interest (about 8% I think but may be wrong) in interim. Do you remember how hard they worked to keep the house, she kept saying. Do you remember when they couldn’t afford bus fare? Gutting and selling the house has really taken its toll on her and seems to have compounded her grief.

Who was it that died?

As said up the thread, if it’s a parent the threshold for IHT is effectively £1m.

I really struggle to feel sympathy for people who are inheriting such a huge sum.

The thing is in the south east that could be a 3 bedroom cottage.

Which proves the huge inequality between the regions in the UK.

We'd be better tackling that than farting around with minor tweaks to the tax system.

I don't think you will ever tackle that inequality, some areas are always going to be far more desirable than others.

Double or triple CT for those with more than one house. closely followed by inheritance tax/

Completely punitive towards those who have exhibited financial responsibility

It’s still a huge amount to inherit tax free.

You only pay tax on anything above the £1m. It’s paid out of the estate. I really don’t have it in me to be sympathetic, I’m afraid.

Ok let me give you a scenario.

19 year old girl parents die in a car crash.

House is worth 1.6 million.

19 year old girl can't afford the portion of IHT, so now on top of losing her parents at 19 years old has to leave the family home.

Any sympathy?

She doesn’t have to pay it. The estate does. So your example is flawed.

Oh come on, you get my point.

She would need to find the money to pay it if she wanted to stay in her family home.

From the wealthy estate.

Again, there are much bigger issues.

It would still be pretty upsetting, surely you can concede that.

Sure. But at that point I’ve found people are more bothered by the money than the loss.

How would the child deal with the council tax bills, insurance and general costs of running a large family house when they were only one person ?

The thing is with any system there are always going to be exceptional circumstances which catch people in difficult situations. But if we wanted to make sure that never happened then we probably would have to have no taxation at all.

Someone losing their parents at 19 is obviously a tradgedy, but they would still have a substantial legacy in order to carry on with their lives and if it were important to the parents for their adult child to be able to stay in a particular place in the event of their death they could always take out insurance in order to allow that.

But you can use that arguement for lots of things @coulditbeme2323 eg pension credit, housing benefit.

The limit is up to 1mill! Are you saying people under that were frivolous?

It's not 1 million it's 16k!

There are plenty of houses under 1m even in London.

My parents estate will incur IHT, it’s maybe 1.5m but then paid 60k for it…

True but there's been a massive move of jobs from the regions into London/SE over the past few decades which has left a lot of the regions without much in the way of decent employment opportunities, especially for graduates.

With WFH etc there's no reason why so many jobs should be concentrated in a small corner of the country.

Lots of areas are "desirable" in lots of different ways except for them having virtually nothing in the way of decent jobs unless you want to work in catering or hospitality or are a teacher or nurse. You're really not going to find a job if you're an actuarial graduate living in Cumbria!

?

Before you start paying for care.