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Inheritance tax

Virus said:
Why?
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It would increase equality of opportunity and raise funds for public services such as health and education. Kids should be able to inherit enough to pay off a standard mortgage tax-free, but I don't believe they should be able to inherit so much money they don't need to actually work anymore without paying a hefty tax on it.
 
stokes234 said:
It would increase equality of opportunity and raise funds for public services such as health and education. Kids should be able to inherit enough to pay off a standard mortgage tax-free, but I don't believe they should be able to inherit so much money they don't need to actually work anymore without paying a hefty tax on it.
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Do you believe the same should hold for lottery winners? Should winnings be capped at the average mortgage?

What about if I invest in the next Apple and get lucky? Should my return be capped at the average mortgage?

What's so special about inheritance that we should taxing it?

I doubt a huge inheritance tax would raise much in the way of funds...it would just be spent or, more likely, people would find ways around it.
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
Do you believe the same should hold for lottery winners? Should winnings be capped at the average mortgage?

What about if I invest in the next Apple and get lucky? Should my return be capped at the average mortgage?

What's so special about inheritance that we should taxing it?

I doubt a huge inheritance tax would raise much in the way of funds...it would just be spent or, more likely, people would find ways around it.
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I don't recall mentioning a cap. But yes, higher taxes on luck are fine by me.
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
Go on...I'm listening.
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I don't believe in "life after death" so I do not believe that a "dead person" (the phrases themselves are a folklore holdover) can own anything and in general society is arranged so ownership of something is what gives you the right to dispose of it.
 
Darat said:
I don't believe in "life after death" so I do not believe that a "dead person" (the phrases themselves are a folklore holdover) can own anything and in general society is arranged so ownership of something is what gives you the right to dispose of it.
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So no donor card required then, eh? :p
 
Darat said:
I don't believe in "life after death" so I do not believe that a "dead person" (the phrases themselves are a folklore holdover) can own anything and in general society is arranged so ownership of something is what gives you the right to dispose of it.
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Well, if you own something and you die that ownership has to transfer to someone or something. So what you are really arguing is that the government has a right to your ex-possessions when you die. I'm not seeing why that logically follows.

The original argument wasn't that people can't transfer ownership rights to their next of kin anyway it was just that the government should get a bigger cut of the transaction.

To your point though, people can sign contracts to be executed on future events all the time. You can sign a piece of paper that says you will pay me 100 quid on the 1st of December. Why shouldn't that apply to 'in the event of my death' too?

Could also be a bit tricky with respect to business ownership and such things...if Mrs Smith's Bakery suddenly transferred to HM Government what exactly are they going to do with it?
 
Darat said:
Absolutely truthfully - yes. Our attachment to a bag of chemicals is just sentiment.
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So if your mother/sister/wife/close family member was to pass away you'd have no problem with the local kids taking the body away to the local park to do whatever they want with it?

Or would ownership of the corpse transfer to HMG again?
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
So if your mother/sister/wife/close family member was to pass away you'd have no problem with the local kids taking the body away to the local park to do whatever they want with it?
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Again quite truthfully no I wouldn't (bar the public health issue mentioned above) but I suspect that would get a bit messy, see below.

Last of the Fraggles said:
Or would ownership of the corpse transfer to HMG again?
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That would probably be the easiest thing to do given all the reasons why society may still have an interest in the corpse.
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
Well, if you own something and you die that ownership has to transfer to someone or something. So what you are really arguing is that the government has a right to your ex-possessions when you die. I'm not seeing why that logically follows.
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That could be one way society decides to handle the issue. I can't see why it couldn't be treated as lost property is.

Last of the Fraggles said:
The original argument wasn't that people can't transfer ownership rights to their next of kin anyway it was just that the government should get a bigger cut of the transaction.

To your point though, people can sign contracts to be executed on future events all the time. You can sign a piece of paper that says you will pay me 100 quid on the 1st of December. Why shouldn't that apply to 'in the event of my death' too?
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Because after you are dead there is no "you", our language is not very good of addressing this type of situation as the concept of life after death is so deeply embedded in our language and society. To try and express it in terms of contracts, if we take a contract (to keep the discussion simple) to be an agreement between two people, if one of those people no longer exists who is the contract between?
Last of the Fraggles said:
Could also be a bit tricky with respect to business ownership and such things...if Mrs Smith's Bakery suddenly transferred to HM Government what exactly are they going to do with it?
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We have well established rules for the disposal of an estate when there are no heirs, which can be pretty much summed up as the government gets the estate.

Think of the advantages if we drop the fiction of a dead person still existing as an entity with wants and preferences.
 
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