Best Of

Yet another vanilla duplicate

Forcing people to sell family homes on the death of a partner is not a good look. Most families don't hold 10% of the value their assets in easily accessible cash so would either have to sell or take out a loan.

The special carve out for family homes is one of the main reasons the housing market is so ridiculously overpriced, and why pensioners cling onto family homes. We should tax them more than other assets, not the other way round.

But IHT is stupid tax in general. Replace it and CT with an annual 1% property tax.

IHT is a stupid tax because it is only paid by those who are both unprepared and middle class.

Those who are wealthy and/or oganized simply route around it.

It would make much more sense, as has been noted before, to follow the example of Trusts, and simply have a small annual levy (say 0.3% of land value, which would raise 23bn).

That would raise as much as IHT and Capital Gains (which between them raise 22bn, with 8bn being IHT and 14bn being Stamp Duty), and be much fairer.

The other advantage of this is that it would take in foreign owners of British land, where we currently collect almost no taxes.

The problem with that yet again is that it is a policy that makes sense for large parts of the country outside London and the SE but for the 28% of the population who do live there it will make it impossible for anyone on normal average wages to own their own house.

The median price of a terraced house in London is £680,000. The same for a flat is £450,000. Asking someone working in the public sector to find £6,800 a year (when currently they are paying around £2,200) seems completely unrealistic.

For me in Lincolnshire it would mean paying a bit more but not much even though I live in something of a country pile.

Given the massive discrepencies between regions, any sort of national system based on a % of the property value seems completely unrealitic.

That’s what levelling looks like, I’m afraid. If a 1% flat rate looks mad then it’s not the tax that is the problem. House values will respond, mitigating that impact - setting up in the NE of England would suddenly look much more attractive.

Indeed, to invert this complaint - why does someone in Middlesbrough pay 4% while a millionaire in London can pay 0.4%?

The problem is Westminster centralisation, and the assumption of it.

Land taxes like this work quite well in other countries, but are always devolved.

That way we get competition, innovation, and transparent trade offs.

Just to clarify: my understanding is that a Burnham proposes to scrap the current IHT and replace it with a flat 10% rate with far fewer exemptions.

So really not red meat for the left. Actually good news mainly for the well off.

Yep. Very bad for the vast majority of people who don't currently pay any IHT but very good for the wealthiest in society. Not exactly great left wing policies and certainly not good for re-election prospects.

If they can make it work so that it frees up huge amounts of council tax to actually provide local services, on the other hand, then every Labour MP can point to the filled potholes, new buses, and clean town centres at the next election.

Figure out a way for councils to have enough money to fix all potholes and they'll win councils up and down the country for years. Even when a council is doing a very good job a pothole is taken as a visible sign that they are failing, perceptions would improve massively if the issue could be tackled.

Just to clarify: my understanding is that a Burnham proposes to scrap the current IHT and replace it with a flat 10% rate with far fewer exemptions.

So really not red meat for the left. Actually good news mainly for the well off.

Yep. Very bad for the vast majority of people who don't currently pay any IHT but very good for the wealthiest in society. Not exactly great left wing policies and certainly not good for re-election prospects.

If they can make it work so that it frees up huge amounts of council tax to actually provide local services, on the other hand, then every Labour MP can point to the filled potholes, new buses, and clean town centres at the next election.

Figure out a way for councils to have enough money to fix all potholes and they'll win councils up and down the country for years. Even when a council is doing a very good job a pothole is taken as a visible sign that they are failing, perceptions would improve massively if the issue could be tackled.

It is not potholes; it is 20 years of very poor maintenance.

So it is entire sections or lengths of carriageway which need to be resurfaced or reconstructed.

There is also the less talked about issue that any Tom, Dick or Sally seems to be able to dig up roads, and do shit repairs - it happens repeatedly in brand new sections. This is to do with LHAs having no resources to impose timetables, or having to work hand to mouth with no chance to plan, and no resources to force whoever to work to an acceptable standard.

I know it is more complicated than just 'fill in the holes', but the point standards that if it could be addressed, even if just papering over the cracks as it were, people would probably quickly have a better opinion of their council - quick and nasty repair which needs redoing would work even, if you got lucky and didn't need to redo the same bits too often.

Yet another vanilla duplicate

Forcing people to sell family homes on the death of a partner is not a good look. Most families don't hold 10% of the value their assets in easily accessible cash so would either have to sell or take out a loan.

The special carve out for family homes is one of the main reasons the housing market is so ridiculously overpriced, and why pensioners cling onto family homes. We should tax them more than other assets, not the other way round.

But IHT is stupid tax in general. Replace it and CT with an annual 1% property tax.

IHT is a stupid tax because it is only paid by those who are both unprepared and middle class.

Those who are wealthy and/or oganized simply route around it.

It would make much more sense, as has been noted before, to follow the example of Trusts, and simply have a small annual levy (say 0.3% of land value, which would raise 23bn).

That would raise as much as IHT and Capital Gains (which between them raise 22bn, with 8bn being IHT and 14bn being Stamp Duty), and be much fairer.

The other advantage of this is that it would take in foreign owners of British land, where we currently collect almost no taxes.

The problem with that yet again is that it is a policy that makes sense for large parts of the country outside London and the SE but for the 28% of the population who do live there it will make it impossible for anyone on normal average wages to own their own house.

The median price of a terraced house in London is £680,000. The same for a flat is £450,000. Asking someone working in the public sector to find £6,800 a year (when currently they are paying around £2,200) seems completely unrealistic.

For me in Lincolnshire it would mean paying a bit more but not much even though I live in something of a country pile.

Given the massive discrepencies between regions, any sort of national system based on a % of the property value seems completely unrealitic.

That’s what levelling looks like, I’m afraid. If a 1% flat rate looks mad then it’s not the tax that is the problem. House values will respond, mitigating that impact - setting up in the NE of England would suddenly look much more attractive.

Indeed, to invert this complaint - why does someone in Middlesbrough pay 4% while a millionaire in London can pay 0.4%?

Yet another vanilla duplicate

Forcing people to sell family homes on the death of a partner is not a good look. Most families don't hold 10% of the value their assets in easily accessible cash so would either have to sell or take out a loan.

The special carve out for family homes is one of the main reasons the housing market is so ridiculously overpriced, and why pensioners cling onto family homes. We should tax them more than other assets, not the other way round.

But IHT is stupid tax in general. Replace it and CT with an annual 1% property tax.

IHT is a stupid tax because it is only paid by those who are both unprepared and middle class.

Those who are wealthy and/or oganized simply route around it.

It would make much more sense, as has been noted before, to follow the example of Trusts, and simply have a small annual levy (say 0.3% of land value, which would raise 23bn).

That would raise as much as IHT and Capital Gains (which between them raise 22bn, with 8bn being IHT and 14bn being Stamp Duty), and be much fairer.

The other advantage of this is that it would take in foreign owners of British land, where we currently collect almost no taxes.

The problem with that yet again is that it is a policy that makes sense for large parts of the country outside London and the SE but for the 28% of the population who do live there it will make it impossible for anyone on normal average wages to own their own house.

The median price of a terraced house in London is £680,000. The same for a flat is £450,000. Asking someone working in the public sector to find £6,800 a year (when currently they are paying around £2,200) seems completely unrealistic.

For me in Lincolnshire it would mean paying a bit more but not much even though I live in something of a country pile.

Given the massive discrepencies between regions, any sort of national system based on a % of the property value seems completely unrealitic.

Just to clarify: my understanding is that a Burnham proposes to scrap the current IHT and replace it with a flat 10% rate with far fewer exemptions.

So really not red meat for the left. Actually good news mainly for the well off.

Yep. Very bad for the vast majority of people who don't currently pay any IHT but very good for the wealthiest in society. Not exactly great left wing policies and certainly not good for re-election prospects.

If they can make it work so that it frees up huge amounts of council tax to actually provide local services, on the other hand, then every Labour MP can point to the filled potholes, new buses, and clean town centres at the next election.

Figure out a way for councils to have enough money to fix all potholes and they'll win councils up and down the country for years. Even when a council is doing a very good job a pothole is taken as a visible sign that they are failing, perceptions would improve massively if the issue could be tackled.