Is it?
Your parent/grandparent has been taxed on that already. Why does it need to be taxed again?
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Because HMRC
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They don’t exist anymore, sadly. The tax affects people receiving the money, and they haven’t paid anything on it, haven’t done any work to attain it, and are extremely fortunate to be receiving anything.
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Appreciate it’s not a popular opinion but I disagree. Not because I will ever have any inheritance to get or give, but just on principle. The state has had the money from this, and even if it wasn’t taxable it’s a principled matter to me.
That being said I’m aware this is not really going to change, and I can understand why it’s an easy target for tax.
I don’t believe really in taxing just because someone’s fortunate to receive something. A lot of hard work may have gone into that inheritance. Even if not, if I find £10 should I pay tax because I’m fortunate?
Again, if it’s the only way to finance things I get it, but it just doesn’t sit right with me, on a basic level.
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So should you be taxed on a birthday present?
You’re receiving it, haven’t done any work to attain it and haven’t paid tax on it.
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If it’s over £375,000 then yes absolutely you should be taxed on that!
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I feel this is the wrong way to look at it. Entities, not money itself, are what is taxed.
The person who earned it, sure they paid tax but they are dead, and once you are dead you don’t exist from a tax or ownership perspective. The person/people receiving the money are the ones incurring the tax and they haven’t been taxed anything on it.
Inheritance tax also plays a big role in society, without it the wealthy families stay wealthy and social mobility suffers.
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This is the crux really - I don’t agree 
BUT I get it, and I never really feel it will change so I don’t get too caught up on it.
It’s the same principle I have against VAT completely - it’s taxed already at source.
But I accept that we just don’t have the ability to not tax this now. VAT or otherwise.
I’ve also never found the energy to be fussed that there are super rich people. I know it’s a passion for many good people, just never ever has been for me.
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Well, most things are taxed in many different ways, because different taxes have different effects on the economy. Income tax is just one of the thousands of ways we ultimately end up paying for tax.
Fundamentally this is what I dislike.
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Hello, perfect world.
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Don’t forget that a lot of the wealthy are those that have created jobs for the rest of us. Not only that, but to put a cap on ambition is extremely short sighted.
Back in the 1970s Labour ramped up the tax rates on the wealthy. Mostly just the rates, because lots of them left and went on to found their businesses elsewhere. Many of the pop stars and the like also left (Elton John being a notable exception). We lost a LOT.
The wealthy will always stay wealthy because the gov are cowards to tax them.
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I don’t really see how inhereting wealth creates jobs for people? Or how people who just inherit their wealth can be considered ‘ambitious’. It doesn’t take a huge amount of ambition to be given money by someone else.
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People build things up to leave it to their children.
Inheritance doesn’t create jobs, but the people who build it up have done. If there’s a clear message that they can’t pass it on to their kids, a number of them could leave and build up that inheritance elsewhere. That’s what happened in the 1970s when Labour hiked up the tax rates on the wealthy.
And ‘wealthy’ starts very small with this tax rise. I’d be looking at over £100k IHT and I definitely don’t consider myself wealthy by a long way.
The U.K. is a successful economy, there will always be people here starting businesses and building up wealth. I wouldn’t worry about some sort of ‘exodus’, so long as the economy remains highly investable wealth will be generated.
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There are already many other countries with much lower taxes than the UK, yet there has been no mass exodus.
Some will leave, certainly, but the vast majority will stay and pay.
Fixing the UK is going to be costly, that money has to come from somewhere, and there will be unintended consequences regardless of who and what they tax.
I do wish we were a slightly more optimistic country. Everyone seems so pessimistic these days. Nothing will improve if we insist on everything remaining the same.
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I gather that about 20% of the millionaires have left in recent months which sounds like a bit of an exodus to me.
Which orifice was that statistic pulled from?
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I expected the figure to be somewhat higher than that. They tend to be highly mobile people. Many would have also arrived, and many new ones created over the same period, I’m sure.
You’ve sort of made my point for me though.
It’s not a debate I’m going to get into. The taxes are rising, it’s past the point of debate. I choose to remain optimistic and I choose to give this government the benefit of the doubt.
Negativity is becoming a big problem in society.