Who will you vote for?

[WideWebWitch]

I can't stand Bliar, really don't know what to vote, anyone else finding this hard?

yes Tinker - but it was Labour who put it up to 17.5% in the first place!

Tinks I think most people have a prob with iht because it applies to almost everyone, because of stupid house prices and because it's 40%.

Labour voter through and through. They're not perfect but they've done a lot for this country, and had to rectify the mismanagement of the previous regiem in the process. I don't agree with all their decisions (esp. foreign policy, far too much influence by USA imo, but I'm putting my trust in them for the long haul. Lib Dems just mean nothing to me, and I can never see the day when I would be voting Tory, the thought brings me out in a cold sweat....

me too

especially for that michael howard creature < shudder >

Er, Gwenick, it wasn't.

www - but it's unearned income. Sorry, I've been following this in The Obs and it's making me think twice about buying it atm

tinker - yes, if you are married and one of you dies and all if left to the spouse, there is no IHT. But then what happens when the surviving spouse dies? A huge IHT bill on the whole estate comes about (often left to the children to resolve). With house prices the way they are, that bill can be very large.

Tinks, true, it is! And I find it interesting that The Obs have been championing getting it abolished/changed, I don't knowe what their proposals are. That it doesn't affect the middle class as much?

Labour. Plenty of things they've done I don't agree with, and I'd be more than happy to see the back of the Cheesemeister General (and for Gordon to step up), but the Tories give me nightmares and the Libs are non-entities.

But, fox, the kids/estate still gets teh first 263k. Why is it unfair to tax teh rest? I'm no expert on this but I am genuinely interested in why anyone who inherits 263k for doing nothing is then upset about paying tax on teh extra.

Tinks, interested to see the answers you get to that!

A good solicitor should be able to help you get round some of the tax issues though. I know some loop holes have been closed recently, but there are other methods.

with property prices as high as they are, wouldn't it be fair to up the threshold? You can't buy much for 263K in London

difficult....labour has gone much too far right for my liking but I do support several of their initiatives such as the minimum wage and better rights for parents etc.However as a Teacher, they have made no difference to my working conditions except that there is even more paperwork based around assessment, initiatives and targets which pees me off no end.My class sizes are bigger too. I may go with LIBDEM as I think they intend to reform the council tax which at present is utterly unfair, and they will tax the uber-rich much more which is as it should be IMO.

Don't know sd. But 263k woudl be a damn good deposit if you were getting it for doing nothing

If IHT threshold were upped (avoided!) where should the revenue then come from?

or could it be on a sliding scale maybe. A lower rate between 263K and, say, 500K, then 40% above that?

just burbling here, i don't know, but 40% does seem punitively high - i'm not saying people shouldn't be taxed at all though

Income from rising house prices is unearned Tinker, but because house prices are now so high many people need to inherit money before they can afford to get on the ladder.
The problem with IHT as it is is that the really rich can easily avoid it - if your assets are not just your house you can afford to pass money to your kids at before you get really old and still have enough to live on. So it hits middle income families very hard. And £263 is often shared between many people so each one gets significantly less than that.
I think it should be abolished as it is, and replaced with a tax on inheritances received - so that above a certain amount (£100,000 perhaps) any inheritanceyou got was taxed at yoru rate of income tax.
I don't particularly af=gree with teh income tax system being used to re-distribute wealth, but wouldn't have a problem with an inheritance tax system being used to do so

Thank you Prufrock, will ponder on that. Don't disagree, in theory, with a reform as long as total revenues remain the same and it is less easy to avoid.

Labour- i dont agree with their foreign policy, and if im entirely honest, i dont trust Blair, but i do think that they are the better party for families with young children.
Id have no hesitation in voting for them if Gordon Brown was prime minister- i trust him.

they are not the ideal party, but what is the alternative?

but this inheritance tax thing goes back to the the reason why many people won't save - why should they work hard and save - and pay tax if when they die and pass it onto their children the children then have to pay MORE tax??

Exactly Gwenick, but I don't intend to save - once I retire I'm spending everything- screw teh kids inheritance.

Seriously - we are comfortably off, and will be even more so when dh's father dies, but I don't particularly want his money. I want to be able to give my kids a deposit for their first home, but after that they are on their own. I don't want them to inherit loads from us, as dh's brother has expected to do so all his life and is therefore a complete waster. I plan on giving my kids the very best opportunities that money can buy, but once we are gone I would be perfectly happy for my lifetimes accumulated wealth to go to give other peoples kids opportunities.

I said on another thread that I really don't see the problem with stamp duty - if it were abolished house prices would only go up accordingly.

Also inheritance tax, capital gains - admitedly neither are likely to ever affect me, but if they did, I would expect to pay tax - it's only fair.

Petrol and company car tax are arguably green taxes, though they could be re-thought out (I think they should abolish car tax and put it all on petrol, personally).

and 1% on NI is 1% - not a lot for most families when you take WHTC into account.

Now i sound like a Labour supporter.

also i don't save because I spend too much on rent - inheritance tax doesn't and wouldn't ever come into it.

I don't understand company car tax actually - my dad used to have a company car which was shared between his 'team' while he was actually at work - if one needed to go out of the office for work they took the company car.

If dad didn't have the company car for the weekend then we used to have to use different forms of transport - therefore making it MORE green!!

That is highly unusual though gwenick - normally a company car is a perk that used to come tax free (i.e. people got co cars instead of wages and wouldn't have to pay tax on them).

It seems that most MNers who want to talk about politics and who are willing to reveal their allegiance are Labour supporters or feel "leftie" in their leanings. Having been brought up with leftie/labour dogma shoved down my throat I could NEVER vote Labour and have always voted differently at election in the past, Tory once, LibDem once and can't remember.
I also don't see why the alternative to Tony is Gordon. My money is on someone else entirely, maybe Peter Hain or.... dunno.