What are the Tories thinking with insane £1,000,000 inheritance tax threshold proposal for family homes?

[Figmentofmyimagination]

It's almost as if they have completely lost their way.

This is a very bad idea.

In a country where we apparently don't have enough money for our poor to be able to eat without resorting to foodbanks, they are proposing the state gives £140,000 to the richest corpses.

To balance the books, for each dead person getting their £140,000 extra from the state, 2000 people will need to be sanctioned and go to foodbanks.

All this so that people aren't taxed on their "family homes"

This is nonsense. I live in my family home, my parents live in their separate family home (which I grew up in). My grandma lives in her own house. Statistically she is most likely to be next person leaving an inheritance, and my mother moved out of Grandma's family home (long since sold in our family's case) more than 40 years ago.

I think that charitable donations are exempt from IT but I might be wrong.

Handsoff it's called vote rigging. There's another example this morning with the resurrection of "right to buy" - not that we should mind even more house price inflation.

I woke up this morning and thought we'd gone back in time - not to Margaret thatcher but to dame Shirley porter.

I personally think that inheritance tax is morally wrong. A person should be able to leave their possessions to their family without any interference from the state. Those are things that they have work hard for (unless they are lottery winners or something). Yes, they may have been lucky along the way, but luck alone isn't going to cut it. Everything in life is fucking luck.

The fact that you were born in the UK and not in Sierre Leone is pure luck. The fact you weren't born in fucking Mogadishu is pure luck.

I could support paying tax on funds sitting in an account, but not on what are essentially gifts.

Why are people so utterly, twistedly bitter about people having more money than them? Seriously, it's really pathetic.

People with MILLIONS AND MILLIONS in their estate will never have to pay this. There will be loopholes they can pay clever lawyers to work out for them.

FFS people who are against this on this thread are well off too. It's not just jealousy!

If it's a true gift then give it in your lifetime, not after you're dead. And hope you don't die within 7 years!

Why is IT less fair than income tax?

And why is is fairer for living people to pay tax on what they've earned and saved rather than soneone paying tax on something they haven't earnt at all?

How is inheritance tax more morally wrong than tax on income, capital gains, documents or chocolate?

It is certainly an accident of birth that some of us are born in a country with comparatively low levels of corruption, many doctors, a fire service, motorways etc.

But maintaining those systems doesn't come down to luck, it comes down to paying tax.

It is also gerrymandering of the worst kind.

I'm not sure that it would benefit anybody that much.

Children of averagely well off person with million pound house get £140k-£270k more between them, but they pump it back into the property market so prices just increase accordingly because there is still more demand than supply.

Super rich person doesn't really care because £1 million is peanuts to them anyway and their lawyers are sorting everything out.

As a country social and geographical mobility is reduced and we lose services or have to make up the tax revenue elsewhere.

I suppose it would benefit property speculators. For everybody else it's just more of the same.

I see your point Merry Mouse about the property inflation but OOH a lot of people are well off in the sense of bricks and mortar but have very little disposable income.

I think there needs to be more taxation on buy to let, not just the person who has 1 extra property as their pension but those who have a whole portofolio of property and also I agree with some taxation on overseas investors.

It is being discussed on radio London as I type.

a lot of people are well off in the sense of bricks and mortar but have very little disposable income.

That might be an argument against mansion tax (depending on the level it kicks in) but not inheritance tax.

You don't need disposable income after your death.

no true but I want my dc to have my wealth not the government

merrymouse - Because they are fundamentally different things.

Inheritance tax is basically like saying if you give a gift to someone, then you have to give money to the state in order to receive that gift.

You OWN your possessions. There aren't many things that once you buy you are required to pay continued taxation on. If I buy an engagement ring, I don't have to keep paying tax on it - after the transaction it's mine. If I want to then give it to someone, that is a private matter, and the state has no business in it.

It is absolutely ridiculous that people who have worked their arses off, and have managed to get a bit of wealth for themselves should be penalised for it at the end of their lives. And even if they aren't the ones paying the tax on it, they are the ones who have worked to earn these things so they can pass them on one day. It's like a massive fuck you.

That isn't to say that if people work hard they will always luck out, but when they do, why the fuck should anyone have the right to say "oh, sorry your parents are dead. So we'll just be taking our 40% of their life time accumulation of wealth which they expressly want to leave to you in their will".

The tax rate starts at 325000 for fuck's sake. Sure, in some parts of the country that's a lot of money, but even where I grew up in the middle of absolute NOWHERE current house prices are that or above.

It's basically society punishing people for having the gall to do well in life.

If someone owns a million pound house, or inherits a million pound house, they might not feel rich, they might claim not to be rich, but the fact is THEY ARE.

goodnessgraciousgouda I see you're clearly angry about this, and not about to change your mind.

Would it make any difference if, hypothetically, the IHT take was earmarked for care of the elderly?

Haven't done the maths, but what if we could get to a situation where no elderly person had to sell their house to pay for care, but the state took X% of their estate after they died? Would that be more acceptable to you ? (I am just throwing out ideas, no idea what X might be)

There aren't many things that once you buy you are required to pay continued taxation on.

Um - cars?

It's not society punishing people for doing well in life, it is taxing people who have the means to pay so that we can have bridges and schools and libraries and sports centres and somebody on the end of the phone when you dial 999.

People like to think that tax is about fairness, but I think it is more about pragmatism.

As has been said many times on this thread, a large amount is left over after tax, but the fact remains that dead people don't need money.

I quite like the idea that after my death my children won't have to use their inheritance to buy a house in a gated community with an armed police force and that when they leave the house there will be a road that is maintained regularly.

Horses for courses I suppose.

325 000/650 000/1 million pounds is a stupidly huge massive amount of money anywhere.

The fact that some people choose to or feel they 'have to' use it to buy property in one of the most overpriced cities in the world does not change that fact.

Most people have absolutely NO CHANCE of buying or inheriting such a property. And yet those who do inherit are complaining that it is unfair that they lose some of the value in tax.

Most people have to work for years to earn that amount of money. So it is not unfair to tax estates where someone has been lucky enough to purchase a property that has appreciated massively in value.

the people in the properties will have paid a fair amount of tax and council tax in their lifetime and subsidised others.

I still haven't seen anyone bleating on about IT being unfair explaining why it is less fair than any other tax. Or maybe they think that no taxes should be collected at all?