Stop Inheritance tax

[miserableoldgit]

S'easy, spend it all before the bast@rds can get their hands on it!!!  I think it it called "SKI'ing"

[Fat Albert]

Hmmm

Have any of you ever considered replacing income tax with increased indirect taxation and 100% inheritance tax, no copyright or patent rights after death, etc.

I have always failed to understand what rights the offspring/family of an author/inventor/entrepeneur

have to the income derived from a dead person's contribution to society. If that person wants to make arrangements for their family during their life (e.g. trusts etc) fine but after death?

I accept people born with a siver spoon may have a different view but income tax is a disincentive to wealth creation.

I'd like everybody, where possible, to have to work for a living.

[Norman Verona]

Whilst we're talking about the Inland revenue have you seen this letter from them

QUOTE

Dear Mr Addison,

I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more than prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise. I will address them, as ever, in order.

Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a "begging letter". It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a "tax demand". This is how we at the Inland Revenue have always, for reasons of accuracy, traditionally referred to such documents.

Secondly, your frustration at our adding to the "endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat" has been noted. However, whilst I have naturally not seen the other letters to which you refer I would cautiously suggest that their being from "pauper councils, Lombardy pirate banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers" might indicate that your decision to "file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies" is at best a little ill-advised. In common with my own organisation, it is unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a "lackwit bumpkin" or, come to that, a "sodding charity". More likely they see you as a citizen of Great Britain, with a responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of the nation as a whole.

Which brings me to my next point. Whilst there may be some spirit of truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay "go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services", a moment's rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to "stump up for the whole damned party" yourself. The estimates you provide for the Chancellor's disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are, in fairness, a little off the mark.

Less than you seem to imagine is spent on "junkets for Bunterish lickspittles" and "dancing ******s" whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for example, "that box-ticking façade of a university system."

A couple of technical points arising from direct queries:

1. The reason we don't simply write "Muggins" on the envelope has to do with the vagaries of the postal system;

2. You can rest assured that "sucking the very marrows of those with nothing else to give" has never been considered as a practice because even if the Personal Allowance didn't render it irrelevant, the sheer medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable.

I trust this has helped. In the meantime, whilst I would not in any way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, I ought to point out that even if you did choose to "give the whole foul jamboree up and go and live in India" you would still owe us the money. Please send it to us by Friday.

Yours sincerely,

[Guest]

Nothing illustrates that life is a gamble more than the tax system

Scenario 1 - spend all your disposable income on Westies and other good things in life and depend on state benefits when you get to old age

Sceanario 2 - work hard and save hard and pay into the system so that your old age will be more comfortable

The bummer is that, if you have adopted the latter you

a) will not get a penny of benefit, long term care etc. until you have used up all your savings

b) if, as a result of your hard work, or too much business travel, you die an early death, it is likely that IT will take a chunk of your savings leaving you family to start all over again.

I do not necessarily agree with inherited wealth, but if that same early death means your family, who may still be young, have to sell their house to pay the tax, this does not seem fair.

However you do have options available to protect them and I would far rather deal with that than inrease other direct taxes which reduce the ability to save in the first place.

[Liam]

S'easy, spend it all before the bast@rds can get their hands on it!!!  I think it it called "SKI'ing"

Yep. That's the bunny

[Norman Verona]

Sorry, forgot to say hello to Peter.

Hello Peter.

[cidersurfer]

I wonder what the annual take on IT is?

With all the ways of avoiding it I should think it won't be much.

IIRC it's more than they get from CGT so it's a bundle.  

[V 8]

Won't bother me......I'll be dead

[Norman Verona]

Cider, but how much comes from outside the aristocracy?

By the way, I do agree it should be scrapped. Most of us work hard soley for our families. In death as well as in life.

[Pembroke Pat]

I lost my parent three years ago within ten days of each of them.  My Parents paid their taxes, got minimal benefits i.e. child benefit for my sister and I and didn't even cost the NHS a lot when they died.  The point is they paid tax on the earnings once so why should you pay again.  In deed you end up having to take out a loan that you can't afford in order to settle IT before the estate can be settled.  More to the point it is ok if you are married or in a civil partnership but if a couple of elderly siblings lived together and one died then the other one could lose their home due to coughing up IT to a corrupt govt that seems to enjoy spending billions on military adventures with dubya.

And my parents only lived ina modestn threem bed semi.  we are no longer talking super rich.  The super rich have all of their money locked up abroad any way

[petrolhead]

Hi Norman