To think all the targeted pensioner benefits ie bus pass, TV and winter fuel should be abolished...

[Figmentofmyimagination]

.... And the equivalent amount added to the pension credit of low income pensioners. That would overcome the logistical/cost based arguments against means testing these benefits.

Random Only seeing your reply now. Inheritance is just a fancy name for 'gift' - should we stop all gift giving so we don't offend others? I got generous christmas gifts and my friends barely got anything - ShouLD they have been siezed by the state??

And its unfortunate that others work hard and don't earn much but that's not the 'richer' people's fault - it's how it worked out (be it luck, choices made or just working harder ). No reason to not leave your children all that you have worked for. Envy achieves nothing but bitterness.

And which generation has the most to lose if house prices fall? Not young people desperately trying to buy and not pensioners or baby boomers either but surely their children who are waiting to inherit.

I thought Dido's question about inheritance was an excellent one that skewers this silly, lazy old versus young argument. It's noticeable how few (if any?) of the my-parents- have-5-holidays-a-year posters came back to answer her.

Dh and I both have parents who are relatively well off. In many cases there is 100% inheritance tax all ready, if people have to pay for care later on. As a result its impossible to know what inheritance will be.

I've personally always been of the opinion that inheritance tax is better than taxing on earned income and that I dont expect or want to inherit particularly. With any luck I will be much older (ie retirement age myself) before that happens, if it does.

I've just been away for the week with Dm (born 1949). She most definitely did not fight in the war, she was at pains to tell me that she didn't remember rationing. Going to the supermarket with her was an education- premium this, finest that, I don't think she looked at price all week.

Would be interesting, why pay off the mortgage if you can't pass on the house - lets all use the money to privately educate the kids in their lifetime, to give them an advantage instead.

The desire to pass on advantage to our children will always be there.

It has changed tack Howcan! But I think it illustrates how this whole notion of inter-generational conflict is absolute bollocks - probably dreamed up by the super rich.

We are all of us locked into the problem.

Looked at a price all week. Her food bills are double mine and there is only 2 of them. Which is all fine, but they are absolutely not of the make do and mend generation.

My mum is 69 and gets £12700 PA in pensions that my late dad had and her state pension.
This takes her over the threshold so she pays tax.
I do not begrudge her her free prescriptions (she is in poor health) or her free bus pass (which she has never used) or her fuel Payment.
BUT I do feel these things should be means tested.
My pils are well off. My fil retired at 58. They have plenty of money. They have 2 cars and both drive. They do not need these benefits.
I know other family members who joke about and spend their fuel payments on wine.
So, yes. It does rankle somewhat.
Other benefits are mean tested aren't they?
But successive govts are so bloody scared of the grey vote they won't do anything.

...and to answer the inheritance tax question....I don't think it will apply to us.
I assume all inheritance will go in care fees.

I'll bite. I was a fourth generation beneficiary of a substantial inheritance. I am neither inbred nor do I hoard the money. I have two children and the way it has worked in our family is that each successive generation has the moral duty to leave their heirs an equivalent amount (plus inflation) and anything above that is left to charity. I have two children so I need to double our assets (plus inflation). Given that I'm only 46, this should certainly be achievable and a significant amount should be left to charity.

The money doesn't sit in the bank and it isn't in property either- we still live in a very modest new build though once the children leave home I am buying a pretty cottage somewhere near the sea! I invest heavily (though not exclusively) in smaller UK companies and start ups and do a lot of what is effectively peer to peer lending.

If there were a 100% inheritance tax I would hightail it out of here- of course the difficulty would be proving change of domicile but I'd do my best.

Somewhere people probably wouldpay off their mmortgages if it meant they'd then be mortgage free themselves for their last 30 years, making more of their pension "disposable income" - also a lot of mortgages have to be paid off over 25 years and can't be extended post likely retirement age. Still it wouldn't actually matter if people didn't pay off the capital on mortgages - essentially rented from the bank - or if renting became more widespread (more renters from the privileged echelons of society might lead to people with clout actually caring about improving tenants rights and legislation around renting to bring the UK up to the standard of legislation in other European countries).

If people spent their money on improving education that would be better than sitting on it in the form of property to pass on to their middle aged children. Spending the money would boost the economy, create jobs and improve the general standard of life for their children too.

There would be a rocky leveling out period, but after that it would be better. While you're alive you get current normal levels of choice about what to do with your money, so incentive to work hard etc. remains. Of course your choices privilege or disadvantage your DC - just as your non financial choices do (to talk to them instead of stick them in front of the TV, to hand them an apple insteadof a bag of crisps, to take them to a museum or stick them in front of the TV ...) and that can't realistically be eradicated and arguably shouldn't be. But unless we want to live in a "rule of the jungle" nasty mediaeval world where the poor and the sick just die unless they have family able to care for them or are one of the few cared for by charities, money to support an aging population and society in general has to come from somewhere - there is a lot in favour of it returning to the pot after death - "I want to decide who gets it even if I don't need it" is a bit petulant really as long as nobody is able to pass their wealth on after death.

Taz that's very worthy but I don't think it's typical Your kids would have to leave the UK too of course, or they'd still pay tax on the inheritance, and their kids... where would you all go?

If you really take nothing from the inheritance money to just spend perhaps you should set up a mini cooperative bank to make your peer to peer loans etc. (Like the Bank of Dame - did anyone see that programme last year?) rather than keep the money as a family dynasty thing - after all one day (even if its your great, great grandchild) you'll get a bad 'un cropping up in the family who'll spend it all on gin/ gambling on the stock market or horse racing...

www.burnleysavingsandloans.co.uk/Bank of Dave not Dame

If all wealth was returned to the pot upon death and then used to give young people a better start (free higher education ...help with housing ...whatever) then I can imagine that most of our children would actually be better off. Don't panic 1-percenters, I can't see it ever happening but it's a very interesting idea!

MrTumbles I think there are rather more people like me than most people are aware. We don't tend to make it obvious that we have money. To look at me in real life you'd likely never guess- other than private school and good holidays, we have no outward show of wealth. I know rather a lot of people like me and unless you know us closely, you wouldn't be aware of it.

I have no intention of dying before my children are grown and they'd likely go to America if they disagreed with a 100% inheritance tax. DS is already aiming to move to NYC anyway.

Howcanitbe I'm not sure absolute equality is the aim so much as people having what they have worked for but not getting random large sums by inheritance in addition.

The main thing is that there isn't enough money currently for universal benefits - they are being cut already, and when those who have list child benefit are pensionable age that end of the benefit spectrum will have been cut too - it already has been in that people have to be older and older to start claiming, and it will continue to be as long as cuts affect people 20+ years down the line, making them easier to swallow.

The bitterness about universal benefits for pensioners is due in part to the fact those who are currently still working won't get such generous benefits themselves. That is why all the "but, but - the war!" and "unlike the feckless young, those who are now pensioners are just universally better people who all worked hard, we're all prudent, all did the right thing and (in some indefinable way, as those who did go through hardship didn't do it voluntarily in general) did it for us gets trotted out - to shame anyone who thinks they deserve the same benefits at the same ages and points out that nobody currently under 60 will get those things.

Putting the wealth back in the pot when you die would enable the generations that follow to benefit from the funds coming back around - through the general pot, not just to those who inherit from the "well off pensioners" towards whom the bitterness is directed in the first place.

Not looking for a communist utopia, just a way to level the playing field a bit and importantly put quite a bit back into the coffers to fund those universal benefits about which the thread began. The lowering of house prices and the reduced incentive for cash poor/ property rich older people to cling on in 2 rooms of a crumbling house which would be better sold to release capital to improve that person's life and to release the property to be bought by a family at the period of life where they need a bigger property is also a good thing and would benefit everyone (except those waiting to inherit).

at private schools and good holidays not being an outward show of wealth!

McFox I mean substantial wealth. I would guess that most people would look at the house we live in, the clothes I wear, the cars we drive, the fact that DH works as indicators that we don't have substantial wealth.

Taz I could not disagree me. Only 8% of children in the UK are privately schooled, therefore when people say they privately educate their children, I do tend to think they are substantially wealthy. I am aware that some of those children are funded by bursaries or wealthy grandparents but actually, that makes the percentage of families able to afford private education even smaller.

100% inheritance tax would absolutely tip a lot of middle-class people towards private schools, as someone suggested upthread. A lot of people consider private school an alternative to inheriting a large(r) lump sum at death.

Someone should start an inheritance tax thread, really.