Unpopular Opinions

It's only a few lines on a forum post, not that long really.

 

I agree about owners being worse than dogs in general, and these dangerous dogs should be banned ( and yes, those XLs are fugly as hell)
I can only think it's some macho nonsense that drives people to have a dog that scares the crap out of people.
I love my dogs, but that doesn't mean I love all dogs.

 

This. There's simply no need for families to own a dog which, if minded to do so, can tear a toddler in twain and then clamp their jaws on an adult arm and need hydraulic equipment to prize them open.

Every dog that has killed a kid has probably got an owner who thought they were soppy and adorable.

 

That’s the popular opinion, yes.

I disagree though. Tax people less when they’re alive, and allow them to spend the money they’ve earnt on themselves.

Tax people massively when they’re dead, as they can no longer spend it. It then becomes a gift, and gifts are rightly taxable.

The current system incentives people to squirrel money away to gift money to the next generation, who have done nothing to deserve it (and will go out and earn their own money).

Taking the emotion out of it, it makes far more sense to reduce taxes that reward hard work or economic growth (VAT, lower rates of income tax and corporation tax) and set IHT at 75-80% over 300k.

 

Gifts aren't taxable – as long as the person giving the gift survives seven years from the point they gave the gift.

I'd suggest 'hard work' is a myth. What, precisely, is hard work? Because among our hardest workers are supermarket staff or care home staff or someone working 10-hour shifts on a hospital ward.

Our financial system rewards economically valuable work, not hard work, or even essential work.

Some of the biggest companies in the country benefit from the most lenient taxation and yet pay the lowest wages. Other massive companies also have their rock-bottom wages topped up by the taxpayer. Lowering Corporation Tax ain't going to fix a system that's broken on purpose.

 

I’m not convinced by that. Seems to me that the people who own these sorts of dog are themselves aggressive/anti-social and select a breed which reflects that.

 

Agree, as said earlier in the thread it’s like owning a gun, simply no need.

Sadly they don’t just kill kids, had the misfortune of seeing a video on a group chat yesterday of them killing a grown man, horrific stuff.

 

Also we're now seeing dogs bought by people in the pandemic reach adulthood and these on-the-whim owners have no clue how to cope with them.

 

VAT is a ridiculous concept. You pahly taxes on the money you earn and you have to pay more tax on what you've already earned?

The. The company has to pay tax on the profit, and then the next worker tax on the wages!

 

I’m not trying to make the point you’re accusing me of. I obviously don’t think there’s a perfect correlation between work effort and wealth, far from it.

But a child inheriting money has often not worked hard to ‘earn’ that money.

It therefore feels illogical to tax someone being given money, as they’re related to someone who has died, less than someone who is labouring for their money.

To those who argue “you taxed me all my life and then you tax me when I’m dead”, emotions aside, why not prefer the idea of the latter?

 

I generally agree with you on inheritance tax, although the great, great majority of estates are exempt anyway. In 2020-21, just 3.73% of all UK deaths resulted in an inheritance tax charge. (Source: Gov.uk) So it's basically a distraction argument made by the low-tax-is-great brigade. A complete red herring.

Middle and lower earners are taxed more heavily than the wealthiest (in percentage terms – which is the measure that truly counts) but tend to join in calling for lower taxes (which disproportionately benefit the rich).

 

With respect to how much tax the rich pay some good data here:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8513/

The extremely wealthy are able to afford to plan to legally avoid IHT. The estates that get caught are those that unexepectedly die early or tend to live in the middle ground especially as the price ok property in the south east rises.

Any tax on savings or property is regressive and unfair as it takes no account of how those savings or property were obtained and takes no acount of the liquidity or ability to pay.
Tax income, earned and unearned after a sensible living wage and to a higher amount after hitting an "excessive" threshold without penalising working harder. Tax spending at a flat rate and at higher rates on areas to be discouraged such as tobacco alcohol carbon generating things.

When you excessively tax savings in an era where you're encouraged to save to support your self in retirement and ill health you remove the incentive to save for your retirment and ill health and the burdon falls back on the government.

The issue with our tax system is that it's too complex and hence those that can afford to can pay to get experts to avoid it for them.

 

I've seen you make this point a number of times before but it's simply not true in terms of how people want to use weatlh taxes.

No one is interested in taxing little nest eggs or modest retirement savings.

Wealth taxes are intended to hit the top members of society, and ONLY them. We're talking about people who have ridiculous generational wealth, more money than they could ever spend, the types who just see a steadily increasing personal worth increase every year without any change in their quality of life.

Joe Average off the street wouldn't be touched, although the Haves very much want us to believe otherwise - that's how they build support against the idea.

Meanwhile, the Haves continue to siphon off more of the wealth despite the fact they can't spend what they already have.

 

The basic IHT threshold is £325,000.

Currently a reasonable care home in Meister Manor charges in excess £1500 a week or £78,000 a year. At home care in excess of £550 per week. That's basic care with no extra requirements or equipment and care provided by the council's recommended company. If you have £23K in savings you foot the whole bill yourself.

Given we are encourage to save for retirement care, the current threshold is at the very least far too low. I argue given you're taxed on your earnings, spendings and savings, anything left over in the event that you die early/swiftly should be left alone.

 

The disincentive for saving for retirement / ill health is the fact it costs nearly 80 grand a year to live in a care home. But that's a separate argument to inheritance tax and probably explains why the great majority of people with any assets make arrangements before they reach a point that they need to go into a care home.

However, you have ignored the fact that only 3.73% of UK deaths in 2020-21 (the last year for which there are figures) resulted in any inheritance tax charge. So in 96.27% of cases anything left over after death is left alone.

If you leave everything to your spouse or partner there's no inheritance tax to pay. If you leave your home to your children or grandchildren the tax-free threshold is £500,000. I'd argue that leaving half a mil' to your kids without having to pay anything to the state is probably fair enough. What do they want? A free lunch? Not sure that was the key tenet of the capitalist meritocracy! (tongue firmly in cheek).

https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...mentary/inheritance-tax-statistics-commentary

 

Good use of the thread

See @Moose ? This is how you do it?

 

Man Utd get given fewer favourable big decisions by referees than their rivals.

The difference being when anything goes against United, like Onana’s jump into the Wolves player, it is all the media talks about for a week, and referees are aware of that.

In contrast, when Akanji was clearly offside and interfering with play for City’s winner, it was barely mentioned bar for about ten seconds on MOTD.

 

The point I'm making is that the ultra rich and establishment avoid it. They have trusts set-up from birth. The estates that are hit are those that fail to prepare, maybe due to a sudden premature death, or through a lack of knowledge.

IHT in it's current guise and at the current levels does not hit the people it was intended to hit and it's a disincentive to save for retirement.

 

There's unpopular and then there is this. Is Hyperunpopular a word?

 

'Hyper-' as used in this context is a prefix, not a word in itself.

The word 'hyper' (a fairly recent addition to the dictionary) means 'over-stimulated'. The prefix 'hyper-' means 'beyond' or 'excessively'.

 

So a hypermarket is an over stimulated supermarket?

 

No, that would be a hyper market.

 

That's just hyperbole.

 

Have you got any data to support that view, or is it just what you reckon?

Because Gov.uk data says this: https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...mentary#iht-liabilities-and-taxpaying-estates

"This table shows that taxpaying estates owned by those aged between 75 and 84 and 85 and over account for the vast majority of the tax liability. Those estates account for £1.4 billion (25%) and £3.3 billion (57%) of the total tax liability (£5.76 billion) for the tax year 2020 to 2021. Those aged under 75 account for only £1.1 billion (18%)."

Inheritance tax hits the wealthiest. For the latest year there are figures published, there were 2,380 estates paying tax on a net estate value of between £300,000 and £400,000 but the tax rate was just 4%.

At £1m it's around 15% average effective tax rate. To get to an average effective tax rate of 25% you've got to be leaving an estate worth £3m. This seems perfectly justifiable.

I'd also say that taking into account 'lack of knowledge' is a terrible reason for implementing any policy. People have a lack of knowledge of loads and loads of things, but what's that got to do with the price of fish?! After all, there's only two certainties in the world – death and taxes – and all the information required to make a plan is in the public domain. Someone who has the wherewithal to have an estate that will be liable to tax will assets such as a property, cash savings, an ISA, a pension. They will probably have life insurance, a mortgage, a credit cared etc. Suddenly they're absolved of responsibility when it comes to what happens in the event of their death? That argument doesn't really stack up.

Edit: I'd also ask you if you've been discouraged from saving for your retirement? You'd rather not have anything to spend when you're old?!

 

I have 15 years experience in the finance sector in an analysis and administration role with the last 10 being directly involved in private finance and estates. I've given my opinions based on this experience. Have I been discouraged to save? No because I have no dependants my estate will go to charity and the government will get squat if athere is any left.

I concede that my statement about it not hitting the people intended does assume that the intention is there to target the very richest. If that is the case then IHT does not work.
The government stats are interesting but do need to taken understanding that exmeptions and estates outside of tax will not be valued accordingly for those stats.
If you can find table 12.2 and the source data for it it would tell me more, however my brief look at it proved unhelpful.

This is by the by however, regardless of figures, for me:

On a moral standing. If someone works hard, gets taxed on their earnings, get taxed on their spendings and gets taxed on their savings and they save to support themselves in retirement. If they have some left over, whatever the amount, why should a slice go to the government because they've been unable to, or unaware they were able to, simply plan and avoid it. Like any wealth tax, the motivation behind it appears to be jealousy and the method to apply it is unfair at best.

 

That's a fair enough opinion, although I disagree with you, but it doesn't seem to tally with the importance you place on hard work. Why allow someone to pick up a big wedge they've not earned themselves without ANY tax being due? It's illogical. We tax earned income, we tax profits made on savings, we tax goods and services, but we shouldn't tax a massive free gift at all?

But looking at the macro picture – what do you propose to replace the £5.76 billion a year that'll be lost to the public purse if inheritance tax is scrapped? Are you happy to pay more tax to cover the gap?

Because it seems much less punitive to tax the (wealthy) dead a proportionate amount rather than pile the burden onto the living.

This is a really good resource from Which – https://www.which.co.uk/money/tax/i...ax-thresholds-rates-and-who-pays-ajcJC0S14edm

 

It's not a tax on the dead, though, is it?

 

An interesting debate, and I understand both points of view.
If say £1m accumulated wealth has been correctly taxed during my lifetime and I could spend that on whatever I liked, why should tax be payable if i choose to give it to family or friends in need instead of just spending it? The Govt is encouraging me to just spend/waste it.
Alternatively why should someone receive a gift tax free if all their other income/earnings have been taxed.
I guess it depends on whether you look at this from the view of the dependant or the deceased.

 

I take that point but one problem, as Meister has said, is that it falls haphazardly in so far as an unexpected death may give rise to liability whereas a much richer person might well be able to arrange for no, or little, tax to be paid because they are lucky to live long enough to make the necessary arrangements.

 

Theres an estimated £15bn lost to fraud. Cracking down on that for a start might help. £1/2bn in avoidance schemes that I would stop. Nearly £1bn in evasion which we need to concentrate more on.

On the whole I'd simplify the whole tax system. All income earned or unearned over a living wage is subject to tax and at an increasaed rate above a certain level. All income dconsidered, dividends etc. simplify the system reduce evasion & avoidance, increase efficiency. THw problem isn;t accumulated wealth, it;s how the wealth is accumulated.
Conversely I'd also reduce corporation tax. More employers coming here should increase income tax take to compensate, increase average wage reduce state support. In an increasingly global market we need to be more competitive.
Many many other schemes, most of which require a full rethink of the economic system. The problem is it would likely take more than one term to do and there is no political party with the apetite to undertake it.

 

Exactly. IHT is inherently (pun intended) unfair. Because those that are able to avoid it legally do so without due account of the amounts involved.
For IHT to be fair you need to bin off the IHT avoidance schemes. Finger pointing at 7 year legacy gifts, trusts and AIM holdings for starters. for IHT to be fair it has to be applied equally and under current regulation it just isn't.

 

True – it's taxing (at a much lower rate than income tax or capital gains tax) a windfall passed on by a dead person to someone who hasn't done anything to earn it.

Which is why I find it a strange moral argument. We're happy to tax pretty much everything but somehow inheritance tax (which let's keep remembering only affects around 3.7% of estates anyway) is the hill to die on (if you'll excuse the unfortunate pun).

I'd have thought, taxing above around £500,000 of that windfall at between 4% and 25% would appeal to those who place so much importance on the value of hard work. How does the common-sense, hard-work ethos tally with arguing that someone should get something for nothing without there being any tax to pay at all? Just doesn't add up to me.

 

Would you prefer a flat rate of inheritance tax so that everyone pays something? I can get on board with that. (Lets say 10 per cent. So someone who owns five £5m houses will pay £2.5m – far, far more than they'd pay under the current scheme). And then Maureen who wants to leave her £450,000 house that's currently exempt will pay £45,000).

Because your argument isn't entirely logical. You want to do away with inheritance tax entirely because 7 year legacy gifts, trusts and AIM holdings schemes are unfair?

 

I suppose the argument is that the tax has already been paid by the person passing on the gift when he/she earned it, which is why he/she had no more tax due to be paid on their accumulation. You are now taxing that already taxed earning a second time, simply because it is now in someone else's hands ?