What tax do you most hate

[Taxta]

I’m torn between stamp duty and inheritance tax.

I understand though that there is a £500 000 limit that no tax is payable on if is going to a daughter for example.

I don't need to know how much tax any individual paid.

What I do know, and probably the only thing that is relevant, is that collectively we didn't pay enough.

Otherwise we would not need to have borrowed a ton of money - ie the national debt and currently have appalling services through underinvestment.

Yes wealth should get taxed again on death. Because the only people you can tax are people with wealth. You can't tax anybody else (well you can try but its pointless).

And the best time to tax people is when they don't need the wealth. Which is when they die.

I only mentioned as I have been looking into this for the future and inheritance for my daughter.

I don't like council tax as it's a tax that pays much of what central government pays but after you've already paid tax on your income. I'd prefer to pay higher income tax and there be zero council tax.

But, in my case and probably a lot of others, my heir would have to pay the tax out of the money I leave them. Money that has already been taxed. It’s legal double taxation.

People would spend their money? Paying VAT, boosting the economy and local businesses? Rather than hoard it so it leaves the economy and is no longer productive? Sounds good to me

I think the elephant in the room is people assuming that ever-increasing house prices are overall a good thing. Yes, the deceased person had a house with an inflated value, from largely unearned wealth; but when their children/grandchildren come to buy a house, the only homes available to them will be ones with an inflated value and thus purchase price, from largely unearned wealth gained by the people they buy them from.

It's normally the case that nationwide rising house prices only actually help landlords/commercial investors, people who move to a much cheaper region/country or people who die (well, their children; not them)... but this clearly isn't always the case with IHT.

Speak for yourself. I pay plenty, more than enough to cover my own and my families requirements for life. Plus a load more. And still get the same appalling services.
And that’s fine, thems the rules. But double taxation is wrong.

People on lower incomes are subsidised though by people paying more tax and every other tax. Incremental tax bands are incredibly unfair, especially the effective 60% tax trap on 100-125k. Why should people on that income have to lose that much when they are already net earners?

I don't really hate any tax tbh. I accept it as a necessity if we want to live in a civilised society with decent public services and a safety net for those who need it.

However, I would like to reform some of the taxes that we pay. I would get rid of NI and roll it into income tax instead. The thresholds for the different tax bands also need reviewing, and while I fully support the principle of high earners paying a higher percentage of their income in tax, we do need to sort out the cliff edge issues which occur when they go over the threshold. It should never be that people are better off earning less.

We definitely need to find better ways of taxing wealth and not just income.

I would also like to see changes to council tax but not yet certain what that model should ideally look like.

I think VAT needs some reform - some of the decisions around which products are subject to VAT and which aren't do seem pretty arbitrary.

I have never really understood the rage about inheritance tax. Very few estates pay it in any case. If I had my way, I would reduce the threshold at which it is payable. I appreciate that this would make be very unpopular indeed!

Inheritance tax and stamp duty are both avoidable if you are v. wealthy. Very unfair.

National Insurance (employeee and employer) should be incorporated into income tax. The complexity is deliberate.

How is stamp duty avoidable? Asking for a friend😂

It’s inheritance tax for me, tax on money that has already been taxed. The thresholds are far too low.

Yes nowadays it’s more than a year of my salary then higher council tax

ULEZ / Congestion charges.

It’s hard to imaging a more unfair, discriminatory regressive tax. People on lower incomes are disproportionately clobbered because they pay the same as the rich woman in her Range Rover. People who can’t afford modern Euro 6 cars are clobbered while those who can don’t have to pay. People on lower incomes are forced out of their cars & onto public transport, therefore freeing up road space for the rich to make faster journeys because they don’t care about the cost, only about their precious time.

Well I’ve been made redundant as a direct result of vat on school fees, as have a couple of hundred of my colleagues so that. We are the only country to tax education. And inheritance tax, it’s cruel.

Ooh if you have to go into care your house value would be swallowed up quickly as that is so expensive plus you can subsidise non payers so it’s not something to be taken for granted by the person’s children

I will pay IHT on my parents estate and I think it is fair. Most is increase in property value. Yes some is from hard work. However being able to work hard is also partly luck - not having a severe disability yourself or needing to be a carer. Having skills and or intellect that allows you to do a job where you earn a lot. Doctors, some accountants etc is very hard work but also luck.

It doesnt mean if your estate pays IHT you didn’t work very hard but so do cleaners, paid and unpaid carers they are just not valued in the same way financially that those who earn enough to leave a lot of money are.

You could apply this to every tax. It’s a crap argument.

@MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack. I think a lot of the division of opinion about inheritance tax is down to where you live. In my area of London, by no means one of the most expensive areas but it has gentrified hugely in recent years, a very average three bed semi with a modest sized garden and no off street parking would easily set you back £1m. When we moved here 50 years ago, it was a very working class, slightly run down area and we never anticipated that it would change to that extent in our lifetime. Similar properties would maybe sell for a quarter of that in some parts of the country. The vast majority of people wouldn’t pay IHT for their average family home in most areas of the UK, but people who inherit a similar, very ordinary property in London would be very likely to.

Unless you want to live in a country without a safety net, without public services, without security or a functioning government then they are a necessary evil. The fact that there’s different kinds mean it’s harder to evade them

Scottish income tax
And this odd system whereby if you get interest in a savings account the HMRC taxes you thereafter as if you will receive the same amount of interest each year
Bonkers !

I’m sure IHT kicks in at 325,000 for a single person’s estate and double for spouses so definitely not a million so lots of people are caught not just very wealthy?

I said there are exceptions.

They're the overwhelming majority of people caught by IHT with unearned property wealth.

Yes, I do understand that. But if those properties were purchased for much less than they are now worth, why shouldn't a portion of the value go to the state in tax? It isn't as if the huge hike in value has been earned in any way?