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.

Inheritance is unfair as well, i agree - but i still haven't understood on this scheme how you prevent the very rich making large lifetime transfers, and the medium rich arranging to spend all their money with the back stop of falling back on means tested benefits, including housing benefit, when it runs out at say 80. (Assume they've taken their entire pension fund at 55 as they are now allowed to do - recipe for disaster!) That is the economically rational thing to do on this system - whether people would do the economically rational thing i don't know.

I think the one thing you can count on is people acting in an economically rational way when it comes to estate planning.

The only way to redress the issues you've highlighted above is by disallowing gifts. Then, maybe you could identify wealthy people who are retiring early only because any money they make from that point onward would go towards the state instead of their children, and you force them back into work with a special tax on wealthy people retiring early.

WayfaringStranger Where DS goes to school (Edinburgh) 25% are privately educated so while it's a minority, it is a significant minority. Most of the children in DS' class have parents who work at the university or in financial services etc. It's not an indicator of substantial wealth here, although I suppose it depends on your definition of substantial wealth. We would have still gone private without the inheritance and that would have been on the salary of an IT developer and project manager (financial services).

tax gifts ?!

Dear God, so what are people working for ? Just to put food on their tables ?. What sort of life would be to work hard and not be able to share your achievements (llarge salary per say) with your closest?
I'm sure all parents work so they can provide for their children -why should your jealousy and resentment prevent that ?

Can I remind some people that communism has been tried and has failed

Can I remind some people that communism has been tried and has failed

Oh for fucks sake, get a grip.

Haven't read the whole thread, however the logistics of means testing this may not make it a financially viable option, so might as well give it to everyone if that is the case. I don't think people who have worked hard and saved should be denied benefits like this, it discourages saving and being financially responsible.

Hahaha be real bereal nobody works primarily to give cash gifts, nobody works primarily with a view to what they can leave in their will. Communism is from each according to their ability to each according to their need (single doctor works for 15k, McDonald's employee with 8 kids earns 135k). Getting rid of inheritance isn't Communism.

It's more fascist than anything else.

Isn't there a contradiction between abolishing inherited wealth to create more equality and the suggestion that, if you did that, better off people would spend their money on private education for the gcs instead of saving it for the future? I'm assuming it's the gps who'd be paying the school fees to get rid of the money they would otherwise be saving to pass on at death.

Doesn't private education increase inequality? Ideally, they'd be abolished in my utopia.

And the money that is currently sitting in building societies, earning a pittance, doesn't just sit there doing nothing. Pensioners are lending Nationwide or somesuch money which they then invest or lend to other people in the form of mortgages so they can buy houses.

Honestly, I think it's a daft idea.

Explain how you reach that conclusion Goodbye

Being as fascism is generally mostly supported by the bourgeois classes, small businessmen etc, I doubt your analysis.

Being as fascism is generally mostly supported by the bourgeois classes, small businessmen etc, I doubt your analysis.

This discussion is disconnected from the outset in that the ruling classes would have to vote for a 100% inheritance tax in the first place, which is not going to happen. You're missing a step in your analysis of my analysis.

Bavarian, it's the kinds of invasive steps that the state would have to take to deal with the workarounds that would crop up should the state impose a 100% inheritance tax, like policing gifts between family members.

Banning private schools is more of the same. You could ban them, sure, but people would work around a ban in the form of home education consortiums, so you'd have to ban home education. Send truancy officers to collect children from their homes and drop them off to state schools.

I would be curious to know if there are any 100% IHT countries, excellent question.

Quick Wiki - in the USA, your estate is not taxed, either federally or by states, until it is in excess of $5,143,000. The threshold is raised every year. Transfers to spouse incur no tax.

Lots of small print, but must do some work.

That's not quite true, Thymeout. That is the federal estate threshold but individual states have their own thresholds - e.g. Massachusetts (where my mother's estate was based) has a threshold of $1m and estate tax may be payable above this level. It is very very complicated. 3 years on and my mother's estate taxes are still not completely sorted!

It's very unlikely any country has 100% inheritance tax because, as Goodbye says, those who benefit from entrenched privilege tend to be in control of government, and would never vote for anything that would erode their privileges, even if it is clearly better for society over all.

I think your stretch from it being a bloody good thing to get rid of inheritance, to fascism, involves an awful lot of presumptions and is just reaching for a universally despised label as an easy way to dismiss an idea you don't like for personal reasons.

Just because nobody else does something is no reason not to consider it - wasn't the UK the first country to introduce a national health service?

Taz, I live in edinburgh too. Only 1 couple out of all our friends, ourselves included, can even afford to buy their own home here, never mind (they work in financial services) private education. I would most certainly peg you as wealthy.

Has anyone on here actually suggested a 100% Inheritance Tax?

OK, fair enough, McFox. Pre-inheritance I would have said we were comfortable, not wealthy (we live in West Lothian- bought our house 15 years ago for £91,000- DS has a long commute to/from school!) but we saved our annual bonuses for a decade so we could afford the fees when DC hit high school - then our circumstances changed.