IIRC It takes 10% of the estate (not just the IHT-liable bit) to go to charity for IHT on the liable portion of the rest to be cut by 4%. I don't think - pace @MattW if I have not misread - that the … (View Post)

Does depend how it's graduated. If it's x% of all money *above* 500K then there's much less perverse incentive. The older stamp duty was stupid because it was stepped - until the Scots brought in gra… (View Post)

Rather astonished at PB these days. 1. Indignation when HMG presumes to control foreign IT companies' activities in their own countries which are legal there 2. Indignation when HMG presumes to contr… (View Post)

They had to evacuate the Parliament because the mass public reaction was so dangerous. The place where they had to hide to do the deed is still extant, down in the University buildings off Canongate … (View Post)

Of course, Lab and (IIRC the prime movers for that particular wheeze) the LDs *designed* Holyrood* to have a permanent and immutable Slab-SLD coalition, lasting longer than the Lewisian Gneiss is old… (View Post)