What do you think of Burnham's plans re inheritance tax?

[JoyousOpalLemur]

He has said in the past that he wants to abolish inheritance tax and replaced it with a social care levy on inherited assets, which will incorporate unused pensions.

I don't totally understand this if I'm honest - I think it means everyone will be dragged into the inheritance tax threshold, but it seems like a fairer tax than what currently exists, and it's there for a purpose (to fund social care).

What do you think?

https://www.independent.co.uk/money/burnham-prime-minister-money-taxes-mortgages-bonds-stamp-duty-b3001078.html

Couldn’t agree more 🥳

Sounds fair. My dear old ma was nowhere near the int threshold but burned her way through pretty much everything, paying care fees. 10% would be way less.

Burnham is trying to be all things to all people and has U turned on 5 issues in the last month, migrant benefits, EU membership, trans rights, waspi women and he isn't PM yet. It's a lot easier to spend money as a Mayor than it is to tax people as a PM to get it.

We pay taxes on everything though. I buy fuel for my car and pu tax on that, even though I'm paying out of my income which has already been taxed. If I buy a holiday I pay VAT on that, out of taxes income.

If you inherit property it's not been taxed, even if your parents bought the property out of taxes income. There's nothing different or unfair about IHT from that point of view

they will never replace IHT with 10% levy, it's against of very nature of Labour, they will add this on the top of IHT

I don't think different types of assets - money, houses, pension funds etc. - should be treated differently for IHT purposes.

No one should expect or anticipate a windfall inheritance. Care needs to be paid for by the people who receive it, if they have the assets to cover it. This can be done so after death if the assets are tied up in property.

They’re selfish fuckers aren’t they?

Why? because there is a limit to what level they are fine to subsidise lazy fuckers? and incompetent state? what about reducing benefits bill first?

It will be interesting to see what he actually proposes as some of his old proposals/ideas are 15 years old. Whatever he ends up proposing I hope he acts quickly and decisively so we don’t end up in this position in 18 months.

No
Its not an add on
Its instead of

Key details of the proposal:
The Replacement: It would abolish death duties in their current form, meaning a 10% levy would be applied to all inherited assets to fund social care instead of the current 40% IHT rate currently applied to some

They need to get rid of the triple lock and means test pensions. I say this as someone who'll be 67 in a decade and I know I won't receive a government pension because they'll have to end up doing it anyway at some point.

I agree that if the threshold was lower (or possibly nil) and the percentage was lower it would seem fairer and potentially less people would go to lengths to try to avoid it.

It's fair enough to tax it when it changes hands. At that point the nature of the asset has changed.

A pp pointed out that we pay tax on already taxed money when we buy things anyway.

We also pay tax on already taxed money for social care via council tax and the cost of that is now huge. Mine was over £2000 this year. For someone on minimum wage, that's about 15% additional tax off their already taxed take-home pay.

Surely it's better to tax unearned money at 10% than it is to tax earned money at 15%?

Well, let's wait and see. There was plenty of scaremongering before the last budget that didn't come to fruition.

Although the social care element of our council tax is for all adult social care ie all those over 18yrs.

This 10% is focused only on elderly care
I doubt the council tax element for sc will change ( irrespective of Burnhams potential changes to how that’s charged / calculated )

Farmer here so I have a lot of beef with IHT!

I think this seems fair and reasonable. The big bit is they need to get rid of rollover relief before fiddling about with anything to do with IHT.

I’d need to know more details TBH.

My mum is in a nursing home and all her assets have been used down to the threshold. I’m loathe to give any more upon her death. As far as I’m concerned we’ve given up enough.

It’s still a theory so there are no details on exemptions but logically as .’it is intended to function as a universal insurance pool so that families no longer face catastrophic out-of-pocket costs’
Therefore
If you’ve already paid you won’t be hit twice

Hmmm, I wonder if this is based on the systems of Finland and Denmark. In the latter spouses are entirely exempt, iirc.

‘The rich’ will not bear an ever increasing tax burden. The UK has the highest rate of emigration of high net worth individuals in the world, and high tax rates are not attracting, and will not attract, the wealth needed to replace them.

Right now the only people paying IHT are middle class or wealthy.
I would have thought it would alienate him from his constituents to tax everyone?! But a good money raiser... I can see him doing it too as he's basically Jeremy Corbyn in Everyman drag. Look at Burnham's voting record if you want to see a socialist in action.

IMO he will need to make the unpopular welfare cuts Starmer has lacked the balls to do as we live in a country where welfare spend outstrips income receipts. Where are the wealth creating measures? None there. Small businesses can't compete and are being taxed into nonexistence. Shlt show of a government that, hilariously, manages to be worse than the Tory shower of shlt we experienced

Well it won't be everyone will it.
My ex neighbour lived in a similar house to mine except hers was owned by the council.
I doubt she would be taxed as she has no asset.
They obviously won't know about her four bed house abroad.

Total side point but isn’t he lovely to look at? I got sidetracked by the little pic in the article, sorry. It’ll be nice to have a handsome PM.

It would be nice, but we’re not getting one!

Which people? Old ones who want to leave their millions to their families ?

OMG. I guess this is exactly why Labour hope Andy will turn their fortunes around

That’s a no from me 😆