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Abolish Inheritance Tax. Or are the Tories terrified of being branded party of the rich?

Online daily magazine The First Post calls on the Conservative Party to abolish Inheritance Tax.

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Inheritance tax (IHT), payable on any estate above a £285,000 threshold, now hits one in 10 of all house-owners. If house prices continue at present levels, there will be four million home-owners paying IHT within the next decade.

But when the former Labour cabinet minister Stephen Byers called for Labour to abolish IHT - an idea immediately dismissed by the Chancellor

- the Tories did nothing to grab the opportunity.

Academics estimate £100 billion in tax is evaded every year in the UK by seriously wealthy individuals and businesses through clever legal avoidance.

So is this just another tax on the middle class?

Reply to
Old Boy
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Perhaps, perhaps TheFirstPost ought to teach the middle classes how to avoid it as well?

Reply to
Colin Forrester

The real question is which taxes would they like to see increased to compensate for the lost revenue ?

Reply to
Miss L. Toe

Yup, the old fashioned socialist policies of "tax the rich and help the poor" have been replaced by "tax middle income people, help the poor, but leave the rich alone as they control the media and we need rich friends".

NuLab have been very successful in raising the tax burden on middle income people while hardly touching the rich.

Probably costs too much. It's not worth spending 20,000 to avoid paying 20,000 tax, it is worth spending 20,000 to avoid paying 2,000,000 tax.

Reply to
Andy Pandy

I read a report that Gordon Brown was considering slapping a 10% tax on restaurant meals (in addition to the 17.5 % VAT we already pay) so that would go some way towards it.

Reply to
Tommo

None. How about not wasting money on dogfighters we don't need at 87M a throw, or IT systems that cost ridiculous amounts of money or some of the other estimated 82bn of public sector largess that goes West every year?

Reply to
True Blue

Old Boy wrote

10% ? Gosh! Do I only have to look up to 10% of the population?
Reply to
Gordon

Nope - less than that - 10% of house owners might get to pay IHT, what %age of people do not own a house ?

Reply to
Miss L. Toe

In message , Old Boy writes

It is simple for any married couple with a house worth £570k can avoid IHT on it.

No, its an attack on lazy people.

Reply to
John Boyle

Obviously just bitter about That Meal in Granita all those years back...

Best Regards, Alex. ()

Reply to
Alex Butcher

[snip]

IHT is /supposed/ to be a tax primarily on the rich and inherited privilege. However, as with many other taxes, the thresholds haven't been increased in line with rising price indices - 'fiscal drag' in other words. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't believe that Brown is especially keen on so-called 'Stealth Taxes'. Fiscal drag, however, is an implement he has used before...

Best Regards, Alex.

Reply to
Alex Butcher

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