What tax do you most hate

[Taxta]

I’m torn between stamp duty and inheritance tax.

CGT. I object that there is no indexation for inflation.
£1000 today is not the same value as £1000 20 years ago, but HMRC treat it as if it is. During a period of high inflation, you are being taxed on the inflation, as well as the rise in capital value.

IHT. I agree that there should be IHT. However, as someone who’s just administered an estate with it…

An item had to be sold by main auction house.
Pretend buyer has £125k to spend on this item… this is how much the beneficiaries get.
Buyers premium (even though the buyer pays it, they will factor it in) £25k
Sellers premium £24k
HMRC calculate IHT on the hammer price of £100k and as the estate was between £2m and £2.5k the cost to the estate was 60% as allowances were clawed back, so 60k
so from the £125k value to buyer less £25k less 24k less 60k =£16k
I know the auction house charged a lot, but it took a lot of work to get the larger amount.

Generally, I would be happier if the net amount of the estate was taxed, rather than not allowing you to offset selling costs.

ditto selling a property where there are costs to get it ready for sale, legal costs and estate agent fees. HMRC are (in my opinion) are unreasonable.

I can quite see why people would hide items and sell them later. I didn’t, but was tempted.

edited as can’t type today

Just to add something else, I do think that in this 21st century we should stop assuming that everyone is married. The IHT allowance of £1m is bandied about all the time, but that is for a married couple. The individual allowance is half of that. As a divorcee in the South East my DCs will have to pay IHT on my very modest 3 bed house and a small amount of savings; £500,000 really doesn't go far down here.

Agreed.

Alcohol duty.

You never pay tax ‘in advance’ of earning the income. If you mean you have to make a payment on account, the first payment on account is due in the January of the tax year to which it relates. Eg the 2025-26 first payment on account was due in January 2026, which is 10 months in to that tax year. You will have earned 10 months worth of income before you have to pay an estimate of half of the tax which is due on that income. You’re not paying tax in advance. You have had the income for 10 months! If you were PAYE you would have paid the tax in the month that you earned it

ps I also hate boris!

Why should people be taxed on inheritance because they didn’t earn it? Their parents DID earn it, paid tax on it already so why should their wishes be ignored because they are dead? It’s like saying no will should be valid because the testator doesn’t count anymore!

Thank you for the explanation ☺️...

Council Tax because it's totally regressive. Our contribution to local services should be based on ability to pay, not the size of our property.

The system is deeply unfair and rotten.

Single people get a miserable 25% discount when it should be 50% based on an average 2 adult occupation. As a result they directly subsidise families out of all proportion to what they as individuals get out of the system.

All taxes are far too high and we get shit services in return. At the same time we are sending money abroad and spending it here on illegals. This is why we have a black economy - its a form of revenge.

IHT is my most hated.
Income tax thresholds should be loads higher.
Fuel duty is also too high and costs everyone, one way or another.

Yes it really doesn’t

But a simple lifestyle would also avoid iht.

It’s another £175k each for the residence nil rate band which is where the £1m comes from

In what way is that shocking?
They were lucky. They know that. They would completely admit they did not deserve to become millionaires just because the housing market is crazy.

Council tax

Taxes are an unfortunate necessity if you want a functioning society, however all taxes act as a drag on economic growth.

The difficulty is at what level they are set, for example:

Inheritance tax - if set too low then it it seriously impacts generational social mobility with wealth being kept in the same hands generation upon generation regardless of merit or effort. However if it is set too high then it simply encourages the owner of the wealth to splurge it all before they die rather than say invest the money into the family business. Plus interestingly what often motivates such individuals (often originally from poor backgrounds) to work to create such wealth is a desire that their children / grandchildren / great grandchildren etc have an easier life / better opportunities than they did.

If you take Stamp Duty, it's kind of a proxy for Capital Gains tax on housing but it doesn't take into account how much unearned wealth has been created by the house going up in value. Far better to have capital gains tax applied to all house sales.

The "let's tax the millionaires or rich" - well if you don't tax them enough then you create a divided and envious society and the problems this causes (see Marie Antoinette and cake). If you tax them too much then they simply leave the country or reduce their hours or retire early.

But basically everyone thinks taxes should be increased but only on the rich, with the rich being defined as someone earning 25 to 50% more than them, but definitely not them.

You can donate to charity to avoid the IHT.

They didn't "earn" the house price inflation, nor did they pay tax on it.

As I’m firmly in the ‘squeezed middle’, I rather dislike my 353 tax code. I also disliked the inheritance tax I had to pay on my parents’ estate.

Scottish Income Tax, I get nothing extra for it. Too young/old for a bus pass, never had a prescription in probably 20 years, not at Uni etc.

Pisses me off that I pay more for living 30 miles North of the border.

I may be wrong but does the IR demand payment straight away or can you sell the house first then pay them?

Surely that would be helpful to the economy and care costs could be covered if IHT was 100%? Spend it or give it away whilst alive rather than hoarding it which doesn't help the economy. IHT means the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. It's an unpopular opinion but after taxing the rich and closing loopholes this is what I'd do.

Stamp duty. So many older folk (me included) would live in smaller, more easily affordable and manageable property, and free up larger houses for families. We live in 5 bedroom bungalow. I have rooms which I never go in. I'd gladly move to 2 or 3 bed property, and avoid the nearby countryside being built over.

Taxes need to be consistent. IHT isn't.

Stamp Duty — horribly distorting and makes our housing crisis worse.

NI — misleads voters into thinking they’ve “paid for” their state pension, making it even harder to fix pension policy.

I would be more than happy for the government to lower the threshold so that all estates pay.