AIBU to think a 10% inheritance levy for social care is fairer?

[TourdeCrema]

So Andy Burnham is looking at a 10% death tax across the board instead of the system we now have, where social care may wipe out your entire inheritance and you don’t get a penny.

paying for everyone’s social care through the death tax

so if you leave £350k house and your parent had 5 years of care, you sell the house and pay £35k to the government and keep the remaining £315k.
presently you’d walk away with £0 as the social care would take the house cost

i think this is a much more reasonable suggestion, than walking away without a penny if my parent needed care( both my parents are dead, so it won’t affect me now)

As long as it applies to everyone. No ducking out of it if you are worth millions or even billions. If you have to sell a few homes, so be it. As it is, very ordinary people are losing their only home.

The ‘trouble’ with dementia is, that very often only what they call ‘social’ care, rather than actual medical, is needed - help with washing, dressing, ‘toileting’ as they like to call it, maybe eating and drinking - plus of course usually someone on hand 24/7 to soothe, reassure, etc.

I mean to be fair that was all my dad needed too - help with washing and dressing and in the last few days, with a bedpan too. But he didn’t need “medical” care as such, he only had normal painkillers.
The big difference being that he was safe in his home, didn’t wander and understood his own safety. So other than my mum and family he didn’t need people around 24/7 (although my mum was there)

I think we need to socialise the risk for care for dementia the same way we socialise the risk for any other illness and I think i agree the way to fund this is by including far more estates in inheritance tax but at a lower rate so its not worth jumping through hoops to avoid it. I dont think we can tax earnings anymore.

Ultimately it feels fair under personal responsibility that if you need care you pay it out of your own assets but we dont do that with other medical care, we all chip in knowing its there if we need it, but understanding we might never need expensive treatments.

I agree @Owninterpreter it seems mad that dementia is hived off to be treated not as an illness.
I understand pure “old age” to be self funded - but dementia care is medical care IMO.

Interesting way of looking at the situation, agree if people don't think they are going to lose a lot - then they'll be less likely to be resistant to the situation and more likely to pay.

I've not planned to get out of paying 40% on IHT as my ideal is I'm dead and my children are lucky to have that problem.

Calling it a "death tax" will immediately turn people against it, no matter how great it is as a proposal.

(And it is a good idea.)

Call it anything else. An estate tax. A social care levy.

JohnofWessex

when house prices were 3x income it was still 30% renting and not buying property. The difference being that there were council properties to rent and people were ding and freeing up council property.

Now the only type of property with councils that seems to be easier to get is the over 60s one bed flats - as people are dying, even though at a slower rate, and freeing them up. All other types of council/social properties are in extreme demand - which pushes up private rental costs

Its the medias name for the tax, not the governments choice

I wonder about us paying an extra small tax from the minute you pay taxes only to be used for care when elderly or potentially ill. Some might not need it so it would just go towards everybody else and if small like NI you wouldn’t miss it. You’d still benefit as somebody in your family would need it. Surely it would be easier and cheaper and fairer to run than going into everybody’s inheritance

We don't need to use it.

The 'media's name' is why everyone thought 'Boris' was harmless.

"Everybody" doesn't have an inheritance.

Privileged, wealthy people have an inheritance.

I think that’s a good idea for the future, but it would take too long to come to fruition and they need a solution now really. BUT I do think starting something like this now for the old people of the future is wildly sensible.

What? Nurses, teachers etc that have a home worth a few hundred grand are privileged and wealthy?! I've heard it all now.

I think this is fair too.

I think it also re-enforces a very important concept that we must all contribute to society and its costs rather than expecting the few to cover the many. Obviously the few should pay a lot more and they will do so if everyone is paying 10% on everything as 10% on £1 million is a lot more than 10% on a £100k. Real money is only raised though when the masses contribute more. All studies show this. Pretending you can target rich people just leads to more tax avoidance and frankly there just aren't enough rich people to cover the bills.

Sadly this is the problem - this is what lots of people think. Which will mean Labour won’t do anything, which means the “wealthy” will continue to avoid the high tax.
At some point, someone sensible in Labour will have to accept that they need to put economics above politics for the good of the people.

Ok so the state is picking up the care bill for many who haven’t paid for it and have chosen to spend their money on other things. It’s just relying on inheritance which is mad and doesn’t cover the whole bills anyway. We should all be contributing from day one. We can’t have it all. healthcare,education , care when old or ill etc without paying for it.

95% of people that die leave behind some kind of inheritance. The median value of estates is £69k in cash alone.

I think that making it ‘fairer’ in favour of the generation who got every financial break going is unreasonable. Boomers sell
their houses to fund their care, put unfairly annexed wealth back into the pot, then start this scheme in 20 years or so when things have evened back out.

The other thing the govt should try to do (how, I don’t know) is somehow make it a privilege to leave the 10%
A bit like when you give blood and it shows exactly where it’s gone.

To be fair, it’s not going to benefit the boomers much. My mum is a boomer and she’s already 80. It’s going to take a chunk of time to get this up and running, funded etc. By that time the truly rich boomers will mainly be gone anyway.

My father's care was £2150 per week and they charged us extra for taking him out in a minibus once a week.

Also aren't the Boomers the ones that are going to be dying off and ultimately finding this anyway? They will essentially be finding their own generation.

Exactly.

Adult social care (just like provision for some SEN children at six figure sums per child per year) could be better value if private providers were not involved.

Paying large wages to CEO’s and dividends to shareholders in private equity companies should not happen. Large profits which go out of the system should not be made from vulnerable people or the tax payer.

The Conservative government cut so much money from LA’s that private venture has had to be used for LA’s to meet their statutory duties, often court awarded. Places used in private provision, who continue to increase their fees.

I don’t mind paying for care (and have within our family -£6,600 per month). I also don’t mind paying taxes and/or IHT. I do mind private venture making large profits from the circumstances.