Labour should increase inheritance tax to 50 per cent

[Tummyachey]

If they did this it would raise billions of pounds - while avoiding raising taxes on working people. Exemptions should be put in place to protect small businesses; I accept this would be complicated, but they need to try and make it work.
So much money could be raised and it would also encourage earlier wealth transfers which would stimulate the economy. In addition, it would help redistribute wealth thus reducing inequality.
There would be political backlash, of course, but they need to get the economy growing and should act now so that the results are visible in time for the next general election.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Meanwhile, how much of the country is signed off sick with anxiety?

Right, take more money off people who have actually worked

IHT doesn't even raise much as much as people think m at the current rate - approx £8B.

I suspect people would go to even greater lengths to avoid it if the rate goes up.

Exemptions should be put in place to protect small businesses

This already exists so no complexity there.

I have no issue with it. I'd lose out some on my parents estate but its not my money & they can't take it with them so.

Freaky Friday on MN.

They'd be better off closing the loopholes on avoidance.

Inheritance tax is a massively misunderstood tax.

The vast majority of people seem to have a huge aversion to it, even if their estates won't actually pay it. The % of estates that pay it at the moment is around 4%. It's genuinely weird how much the public misunderstand it.

Right, take more money off people who have actually worked

Except for that a lot of what is taxed is accumulated wealth rather than earned - wealthy families who pass large estates down. The iht exemptions etc mean the vast majority of ordinary working people don't pay it, including most small farmers and small business owners.

Labour have also recently made changes to IHT to raise ~£2B/year including IHT on pensions and APR/BPR reform. How much more do you think they can squeeze out of it realistically?

Hilarious. A friday funny if ever there was one.

Name a “loophole on avoidance”.

Twat it would Muller the working class who live in places like Bristol, London, Southampton who bought under right to buy. And why should people like me who grew up on benefits, grafted like fuck subsidise those who don't get out of bed because of 'me mental health '
Actually I don't give a stuff about inheritance tax but realise it's a disincentive to work hard, hits the squeezed middle and wealthy people avoid it anyway be exploiting loop holes

It’s not taking money off working people it’s taking off people who are dead and no longer need it

and in most cases it’s taking money from dead people who never paid any tax on it because it’s money from the house that they bought for tens of thousands less than it’s now worth

rather that than they raise stealthy taxes everywhere else that affect the living

“..while avoiding raising taxes on working people”. Sorry, what?! Do you not think some people’s wealth came from working bloody hard?! My father worked incredibly hard for his family all his life, paying between 40 and 60% tax on his earnings, but still saving to make sure that his family would always be ok. It wasn’t his fault that he then died early from a brain haemorrhage - we had to pay a further 40% inheritance tax on that as my mother had already died at 42, & you then want to take even more of a cut from his family after that?! Yup, really fair….

Well according to @needtostopnamechanging , your father didn’t need the money any more as he was dead.

What a joke.

I don't misunderstand it. I resent the fact that the estate of my brother, a postman with a tiny house in the south east is having to pay it. As his house alone is worth more than 325k. How can that be fair when me and DH with an estate worth about 1 million, won't pay anything?

Not true at all. My joint estate with my husband is worth about £4 million and will be subject to inheritance tax. Apart from a gift of £25,000 from my father to buy my first home, the entirety of that is the product of extremely hard work. Now that my DH’s pension pot will be taxed twice thanks to the changes in March, our two daughters will only get about £1 million each. And you want to take more of that? What was the point of us working so hard all those years?

And there are hundreds of thousands of other hard working families who have inherited little, if anything, in exactly the same position as us. Work pays, if you choose your industry well.

Labour are unpopular enough at the moment. IHT is an unpopular tax even among those who will never be liable to pay it. It goes against that kind of ‘British value’ of working hard and providing for your family and the state not taking what you have earned, which is a belief that a lot of people, including Labour’s traditionally core voter base, have. I think they would be very foolish to do anything that increases IHT.

I understand why people want this, it's felt like it is a way of transferring wealth from the rich to poorer people.

But long term, it also looks like a way of transferring wealth that belongs to real people to the state.

I think the reason so many people are adverse is that even if they personally don't have enough to pass down to make a differernce, they can imagine how it would be if they did manage to achieve the amounts required, and then were not able themselves to decide what to do with it. Sometimes even more so with regard to things passed down from their parents, like homes or land.

potentially exempt transfers

You and your children are welcome

Ah yes, of course, silly me…when he died, he ceased to have a family, of course he did….🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

I haven’t worked all my life for just me. I have worked for my children and now my grandchildren. I’ve worked until retirement, paying everything that’s been asked of me, to support myself and my FAMILY. More than can be said for many.
All my efforts have been for all of us, since the day they were born to the day they die. So no, I don’t want great chunks of it to go in inheritance tax. I want it to stay with us.

We pay enough bloody tax. Why should we pay more on property!

Great way to further incentivise people to leave the country if they possibly can! Why would anyone work hard and save in the hopes of a better lifestyle for themselves and their descendants if they know the government is just going to steal it If they die before they manage to pass it along? It would be robbing people not only of their hard-earned money, but also of any motivation to work harder to get ahead.

IHT is nothing to do with whether or not someone worked. Most estates that pay it (and it’s a tiny proportion, about 4%) do because the dead person had valuable property, often bought cheaply decades ago.

As long as they take it from everyone and close loopholes around personal /family trusts which aim to allow the very rich to escape this.

Most inherited wealth is unearned and untaxed - usually from the rise in property(ies) that was artificially created by government policy.

I'm okay with losing it - it reduces inequality but it has to be for everyone - and they can start with the Royal family and their ilk.