Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Is it too early to chat about billionaires hoarding land and avoiding paying inheritance tax?

168 replies

feellikeahugefailure · 10/08/2016 12:30

I know it involves a death and that's very sad for the family, but irrespective of that I do think inherited unearned assets is huge reason for inequality. The UK ranks badly for equality.

OP posts:
derxa · 11/08/2016 17:43

Scotland is a ticking time bomb, mark my words.. chaos will ensue shortly
What do you mean?
Not choosing to sell something you own is not "hoarding" ffs. At last some common sense.

CelticPromise · 11/08/2016 19:09

Dunno what the relevance of banks collapsing and Philip Green is to a thread about IHT. I am perfectly capable of disagreeing with the way other things are run too!

man you complain about the way you are viewed by people who do not know you, and then make offensive comments about a whole group of people you know nothing about.

Cosmic not everyone who has nothing is a layabout either. It really annoys me that hundreds of thousands of people can work their whole lives and have fuck all for themselves at the end of it, never mind anything to leave to their children.

madhurjazz · 12/08/2016 08:52

Seems like he was a nice guy. But the land was acquired by conquest and the forced marriage of a 12 year old.

He did rally against changes to leasehold that would disadvantage him. His monopoly gave too much power to one family. No wonder the uk has the worst inequality as land seized over a thousand years ago still stands.

Then again the British dream seems to be a landlord.

Did he really die that young / unexpectedly? Seems to have lived to have loved close to the average le for a heavy smoker that's male.

RiverTam · 12/08/2016 09:38

What a fucking insensitive comment, mad.

Longislandicetee · 12/08/2016 10:04

And another one makes my list for their distasteful comment. Hmm

Mumsnet is just weird. If you're wealthy, the assumption is that you can neither have worked for it nor deserving of it and that you're clearly ripping off hmrc. The assumption is also that the wealth is from property and therefore hasn't been earned.

On inheritance threads you get people banging on that you should spend it. But flick over to the thread of someone who paid £60k for her wedding, including I assume £12k of vat and everyone has a go at her for wasting money or being a stealth booster.

so conclusion, as long as you're wealthy then whatever you do you're damned in the eyes of the green eyed monsters.

smallfox2002 · 12/08/2016 10:37

the thing about the 12 year old? You do forget the time in which this happened, where this sort of thing was culturally acceptable.

"The assumption is also that the wealth is from property and therefore hasn't been earned."

In this case it wasn't earned though was it?

prh47bridge · 12/08/2016 12:06

It cannot be right, that Manchester United can continue to operate with a debt equivalent to £390 MILLION. Any other business would be closed down long before this

No other businesses would not be closed down. Many companies have large debts - some much larger than this. As long as they can service them (i.e. pay the interest on the debt) they don't have a problem. The debtors will only move in if the business can't service its debts or they believe the business will be unable to repay the loans. Manchester United have no problems servicing theirs nor is there any danger of being unable to repay. The cost of servicing their debt is less than £30M per year. They have turnover of around £500M per year and make a profit after servicing their debts.

In football, Chelsea have around 4 times as much debt as Manchester United.

According to the Sunday Times, the 100 private companies with the biggest sales have debts of £88 billion between them, so an average of £880M - way more than Manchester United.

Dapplegrey2 · 12/08/2016 12:39

Inherited property isn't earned, that is true.
Nonetheless the property has to be managed responsibly and it only takes one gambler or spendthrift for 500 years of careful husbandry to be undone.
John Jermyn inherited a large fortune, all of which had gone by the time he died aged 44.
The Fountains Abbey estate was lost through gambling.
An earlier Lord Shrewsbury lost everything - part of his estate is now Alton Towers.
If two heirs die in quick succession then double death duties will cause estates to be sold.

CelticPromise · 12/08/2016 12:59

Indeed Dapple, so if well functioning estates are so important they surely should not be left to the lottery of inheritance!

Dapplegrey2 · 12/08/2016 13:08

So what do you suggest, Celtic?
Should they be nationalised?

derxa · 12/08/2016 13:12

So what do you suggest, Celtic? Should they be nationalised?
Yes should they? Should our farm bought and maintained on the back of horrendously hard work by my family be nationalised? Or sold to property developers who don't give a damn about the local community?

Dapplegrey2 · 12/08/2016 13:16

Celtic, surely you would approve of estates being broken up and sold - would that not be fairer?

ChazsBrilliantAttitude · 12/08/2016 13:19

Dapple

Agreed, isn't it the 3 generation rule. The first make the money, the second hang on to it and the third spend it.

In fact the Grosvenor Estate wasn't particularly well run in the earlier years (I studied its development). It was really the 19th Century that saw it improve substantially, the 2nd Marquess of Westminster commissioned Thomas Cubitt to develop Belgravia and Pimlico and his son the first Duke continued with the development of Mayfair. The second Duke "Bendor" was a bit more of a playboy but managed not to spend it all (he did seem to take his role fairly seriously but not as seriously as the first Duke), although parts of the Cheshire estate and London estate especially around Pimlico were sold to meet debts including death duties.

ChazsBrilliantAttitude · 12/08/2016 13:21

Dapple - I was referring to your earlier post about how easy it is to lose it.

DoinItFine · 12/08/2016 13:39

The Biritish peasants' forelock tugging passion for feudalism is so quaint.

Seeing a former empire destroy itself due to stupidity, complacency, and an inability to deal with reality is quite amusing.

ChazsBrilliantAttitude · 12/08/2016 14:00

Doin
What a spiteful post.

maninawomansworld01 · 12/08/2016 14:06

so conclusion, as long as you're wealthy then whatever you do you're damned in the eyes of the green eyed monsters.

This in spades.

smallfox2002 · 12/08/2016 14:35

But the opposite is true too, if you're poor its your own fault, and the wealthy and well off are often quite quick to mock and treat the poor with disdain.

DoinItFine · 12/08/2016 15:38

It's not even spite.

Just contempt.

What a shite fucking country where people still think their rapacious, vicious aristocracy are their betters.

The property portfolio of the Westministers is a fucking embarrassment to a supposedly modern state.

But feudalism is what the Great British Public want, and it's what their elite will keep giving them.

The rich despise the poor and the poor enjoy watching the disabled and troubled starve to death and have to go to food banks, cap in hand, to beg for charity.

Pitiful.

ChazsBrilliantAttitude · 12/08/2016 15:44

Who has said the aristocracy are anyone's betters?

DoinItFine · 12/08/2016 15:56

It oozes out of so many posts on this thread.

You have to believe some people (men, in this case) are superior to others by birth to think it is reasonable for this type and concentration wealth and power to be passed on based on birth (and sex).

It is clearly unfair, unjust, unjustifiable for the wealth of a country to be distributed as it is in this country.

But people love it. They love being fucked over by tax dodgers who run the country for the benefit of the few.

I think it's like a sexual kick of submission to a sadist.

Please fuck us over.

We'll be ever so grateful that you get to enjoy feeling really fenerous when you give an amount you'll never miss to a charity that majes you feel important.

derxa · 12/08/2016 16:15

Oh FGS DoinIt
Who has said the aristocracy are anyone's betters? I agree
It's because the aristocracy own land that people get so arsey. And as someone pointed out estates are easily squandered. These are businesses and some businesses are bigger and more successful than others

CelticPromise · 12/08/2016 16:18

I don't know what the answer is. In my ideal world yes indeed land would be a national asset held for the common good. I appreciate this has never worked in practice and it ain't gonna. But i cannot be convinced that the best solution is to leave the wealth concentrated in the hands of a very few families to pass on to their offspring. Like DoinItFine I'm amazed at the forelock tugging attitude that seems to be in some of these posts.

derxa I don't think the existence of your farm should be dependent on the goodwill /business sense /success of whatever random person inherits the freehold.

man I consider myself to be wealthy, although you may not agree. People who disagree with the system you have benefited from massively are not necessarily jealous of you, or worthy of insult, but it is easier to think so than to consider the argument i suppose.

CelticPromise · 12/08/2016 16:19

X post derxa, you made the point for me.

Dapplegrey2 · 12/08/2016 16:25

Celtic - what should the existence of Derxa's farm be dependent on?

Doinitfine - "the poor enjoy watching the disabled and troubled starve to death and have to go to food banks, cap in hand, to beg for charity."
That is quite an odd remark.
What is your solution to the land ownership question?