I think with the NHS being sold off before our eyes there won't be much left by the end of the day with the probability of financing private healthcare etc?
Should we be more open to a wealth tax?
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What do other GNs think of John McDonnell's plans for Inheritance Tax. Basically, as I understand it, a parent can only gift or leave a total of £125,000 to a child, any monetary gifts given during your lifetime would be counted towards that £125,000.
I think with the NHS being sold off before our eyes there won't be much left by the end of the day with the probability of financing private healthcare etc?
oldwoman my comment about Africa and hard work and wealth was made to gilly about an entirely separate point than the one under discussion.
The consequences of the enormous disparity in wealth is already being felt by the U.K. with the voter being prepared to vote for more and more political extremes, as a result of what people like gilly identify as being ignored or left behind. People are feeling disenfranchised with their votes being if little use, and so are turning to extreme politics. Brexit is one consequence, and look at the horrendous division and turmoil that has caused.
The problem of wealth inequality is one identified as a real and existential threat to our society and it’s equilibrium.
Nothing has yet been decided with regard to the IT issue so it is pointless discussing figures that don’t yet exist, but the problem of huge wealth disparity does and addressing that is something that needs to be done.
Why ? Because you're taxed all your life then even after you're gone the taxman is still hovering------Why ??
All but taxed out of existence. VAT being the worst offender.
It's easy to ask why when money is no object and everything in the garden's lovely-----it's called being smug !!
No government (Tory or Labour) give a flying fart about the NE GrannyGravy and that’s just the problem isn’t it? Where I live they will jump for joy at the prospect of a Corbyn lead LP government as they will see him as a modern day Robin Hood. Fools.
Until we see some real investment things won’t change much.
Why?
Legalised theft !!
gillybob I think you have hit the nail on the head!!! £125,000 would buy a decent house where you are.
Here in the SE you couldn’t buy a one bedroom flat for that amount.
Perhaps any future government could actually do something about regeneration in the NE and parts of the UK which need it!!! Starting with reducing business rates to encourage businesses would be a small step in the right direction.
Perhaps it was scribbled on the back of an old envelope, gillybob.
Some not done !
BTW I don’t necessarily think the £125k figure is right although you could buy a fairly decent house here in the NE for that . Not sure if it means per child ???
I don’t think it’s fully thought through .
I agree with you Callistemon McDonnell is dangerous and has done crack pot ideas ! I wonder if he has fully consulted Len about this ?
Vast wealth
So - anything over £125,000 is vast wealth is it? 
Hardly a deposit for a house in some areas.
Am I understanding this correctly?
Someone with one child will be limited to leaving £125,000 minus any life-time gifts.
A person with eight children may leave a total of £1m minus any life-time gifts.
That isn't going to encourage people to have fewer children in an over-populated world, is it?
Or have I misunderstood and it is a total of £125,000 between all children, minus life-time gifts?
Along with their proposed Land Value Tax which will penalise those withy large gardens, this sounds like another potty idea from McDonnell.
Shouldn't those with large gardens be encouraged to turn some of them over to growing vegetables and saving the planet?
I would call him a plonker, but he is in fact dangerous.
It’s a good leg up for them though Anniebach which is great . Nothing to do with who died and when really . I was a single parent too remember . My DD’s father also died very young. He left me, our DD and my son ( he was not my sons father) with nowt. We lived in a council house. Am I bitter ? No of course not . Just saying it’s great if you can give someone a bit of a financial help but many of us can’t .
We are not talking "vast wealth" here WW2 and equating it with what happens in Africa is just plain silly.
IT is fine it's just that the starting level should be higher. At £125,000 everyone who owns a property will be paying the tax, is that what the Labour party are about, taxing those who are trying to give their children a better start in life than they had themselves? As I said before the rich will find ways around it - it is the ordinary working class person who will suffer.
gilly you are so right.
Imagine the enormous wealth that the African women would have accumulated if it was down to had work!
Vast wealth that you acquire through nothing other than being someone’s offspring is fine but when it is used to further your own ends at the expense of those who do work jolly hard both at school and in their job, it is neither fair nor healthy for society.
gilly, so it is for many. My daughters were brought up in a one parent family. I live in council accommodation. Have given what I can to help my three grandchildren in university, I have no property to leave . My mother in law chose to leave her house and savings to her dead sons daughters, one daughter died so her three children will share what would have been their mother’s. I do not consider this has been handed them on a plate.
This saying “worked hard all their lives” amuses me. It’s like saying we are rich because we worked hard all our lives, you are not rich so you must’ve been a lazy git ! Jeez if I had a £1 for all the hours DH and I have worked and will continue to work (until we drop) running our business. Keeping people in jobs and wages paid, when we could have creamed much of it off for ourselves? It bugs me that many people equate wealth to hard work when it is quite often not the case at all.
I have said before I have never inherited a penny from anyone , my parents never inherited a penny and neither did their parents . The saying goes that money makes money and it is so true. Short of a lottery win, my children will not inherit anything from me , anything they ever have will be earned and not handed to them on a plate.
Nothing is decided yet. I suspect that they have put this ideas out there to gauge reaction.
I can't understand how on earth they are going to calculate money given to family during our lifetime - I have no idea myself how much they have been given other than an initial house deposit to my eldest son 28 years ago which will be noted somewhere. What happens to money inherited via grandparents - are they including this as well?!!! My parents worked all their lives and left both GC some money in their wills. One GC has emigrated - good luck on trying to recoup that tax!
We have paid tax on wages, business tax, VAT, stamp duty on house purchases and taxed on pension income. If there is anything left at the end of the day when we have paid for care (which is highly probable) why should they be charged tax on our deaths?!
Whitewavemark2 I agree with your post but pitching it to start at £125,000 hits the man in the street who has lived in the same house for 20 plus years. Not the so called “land rich”
Salary inequality is very different to wealth inequality.
I too would completely begrudge having to pay IT on anything over £125,000, whilst it is a sizeable amount of money and I don't want to sound flippant, it doesn't go far in the south east. Where I live a one bedroomed flat costs in the region of £330,000. We've helped our children in several ways, paid for accommodation when one was at university so he came out with less of a student loan, given money to help with a deposit for the government's "Help to Buy" Bailed the other one out on numerous occasions when he became a young, and financially unprepared father with his ex partner, stumping up numerous deposits for flats and help with all manner of things pertaining to our grandchildren, even helping with debts etc. I think the present generation have an uphill struggle in some ways, that's not to say I wouldn't like more help to be provided for those who aren't fortunate enough to access assistance from family. Property prices are very high in our neck of the woods and it's not always easy to just up sticks and go and live in another part of the country when work and family are in this area. Getting on the housing ladder these days usually involves buying 40 or 50 miles out from London and the commute in will then cost something in region of over £4,000 per annum. I don't remember it being quite as hard when I was a 20 something buying my first home, we, my ex and I, were still able to buy fairly close to the capital say 10 or 12 miles out.
My late father-in-law built up a business, worked his backside off 6 days a week, paid the top rate of tax and then when his estate was wound up after his death, his children had a quarter of a million pound IT bill, wasn't it enough that he paid at the top rate during his working life, a double whammy imo. I know we are both lucky to have inherited from our respective parents, mine weren't anything like as well off as my husband's but they did leave money from property. I regard myself as a custodian of a fair portion of that money to pass on in dribs and drabs to my children provided it's not wasted on fripperies, but to try and secure their future and their childrens. God forbid if Corbyn and his mates were running the country we might as well spend the lot on ourselves. Of course the very rich will find loopholes to avoid paying it.
gg13 the vastly land wealthy are a group who labour see need addressing. The OECD, Pickerty and a report produced by Monbiot identifies this group. This huge and increasing wealth inequality is undoubtedly causing a societal imbalance that is neither fair nor healthy, and will lead in the long run to extreme populist governments as we are already seeing both here in Europe and the USA
Personal Taxes
Tax and NI on income
VAT on most purchases
Taxed on savings (interest earned over £1,000)
Council Tax
Stamp Duty when moving house which is just tax by another name.
Save for your own pension out of salary which has already been taxed, then when you actually draw your pension hey ho it is taxed!!!
Just because successive governments have been unable to balance their books I do not see why my Estate and heirs should give them any more than the absolute minimum.
GranyGravy As I understand it they are not going to confiscate all money above £125,000 per recipient, just tax it.
We will still leave much of our estate to our children, it is just that more inheritance tax will be paid on it than at present.
I really cannot see what all the fuss is about.
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