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 Grey Templar wrote:


The person who originally had the estate paid for it with income that was already taxed. Inheritances are gifts, and should not be taxed. Or at the very least, only cash inheritances should be taxed. If you get left the family home, you shouldn't have to go broke paying inheritance tax and property tax just to keep it in the family.

Property tax is doubly bad because its based on the current value of the house. I saw a story recently about an old veteran and his house. He added up all the property tax he had paid over the previous 20 years and it totaled more than what he originally paid for the house. He ended up having to sell his home because he couldn't afford the property taxes anymore as he was on a fixed income. Despite the fact his house was completely paid for decades ago.

Most of the places I've seen in the US with an inheritance tax, it doesn't even kick in until the value reaches around 10 million or so. . . if that makes one "go broke" then there's far more wrong. . . I truly doubt any of the Hiltons or Waltons are "going broke" when they pay inheritance tax.

 filbert wrote:
Edit: Also, I should mention inheritance tax can put tremendous financial burdens on people. For example, you are left a property in a will by your parents. The property is worth £400k, for argument's sake. So you pass the inheritance tax threshold. The tax must be paid as part of applying for probate. But what happens if the house was all you were left? You need to sell the house to pay the tax. You can't sell the house until probate is granted. Therefore, the inheritance tax has to come out of your pocket and you have to try and recoup that by selling the house once probate is granted. There are numerous examples of people being put under terrible financial and emotional strain through no fault of their own but purely through being named in a will.

I don't think the crime here is that there's an inheritance tax, but how did it ever get that low? Did no one adjust it for inflation over the past century or something? Account for the housing market exploding to 10x is value in the past 50 years? 400k pounds is like $500k US? There are parts of the US and the UK where a house that cheap is a steal, even if it's a piece of gak house. I don't know where this house is, but that just sounds like some let inheritance tax hit at a criminally low threshold. I don't even see how the collection is worth the paperwork that probably goes into the process.

queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 filbert wrote:

Case in point. Screw the government and their taxes. I don't understand why anyone would want more taxes on anything.

Government spending is always a struggle and poor people exist, basically.

Grey Templar wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

IMHO, inheritance tax is a GOOD thing in certain situations. Personally, I'm of the belief that there does need to be a threshold of value such that the "financial burdens" that the family face is tolerable. . . Hence why it boggles my mind that people in the US are so vehemently against an estate tax that doesn't even kick in until the value reaches multiple millions of dollars and therefore will never affect them.

I view estate tax, and a good number of other taxes, as double taxation. They should be illegal. Personally, the only taxes that should exist are income tax and things like license fees on cars

It is a double tax in one sense (that the capital has had tax applied to it more than once) though not in another (that the person hasn't been taxed on that capital more than once). I don't see why that is innately bad, though?

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
So you inherit an ancient mingvase a house, and some other stuff, and Instantly are forced to sell going against tradition and sentimental values.

Good idea.

I agree.

Joking aside: I said private property, not personal property, so not the vase (though it should already be in a museum). I also said increased taxation, not seizure.

Furthermore, tradition is no argument against anything.

Did i talk about seizure?
NO. i talked about beeing forced to SELL becuase you then have to pay the bill for the tax which you can't really afford then.

Simply put i honestly doubt you have an idea what the effect of an inheritance tax means.Infact i doubt you even know what a family buisness is or works like.

nfe wrote:
I don't see why that is innately bad, though?

Because the rich say its bad and their cronies repeat it until it becomes true.

 LordofHats wrote:

nfe wrote:
I don't see why that is innately bad, though?

Because the rich say its bad and their cronies repeat it until it becomes true.

well it's bad out of a perspective of a libertarian.
Which is hillarious because equality of chances is needed to maintain a somewhat free market, making the ideology (and yes libertarianism is an ideology) oddly self defeating.

Not Online!!! wrote:

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
So you inherit an ancient mingvase a house, and some other stuff, and Instantly are forced to sell going against tradition and sentimental values.

Good idea.

I agree.

Joking aside: I said private property, not personal property, so not the vase (though it should already be in a museum). I also said increased taxation, not seizure.

Furthermore, tradition is no argument against anything.

Did i talk about seizure?
NO. i talked about beeing forced to SELL becuase you then have to pay the bill for the tax which you can't really afford then.

Simply put i honestly doubt you have an idea what the effect of an inheritance tax means.Infact i doubt you even know what a family buisness is or works like.

I don't care if someone whose family own vases worth hundreds of thousands have to sell a property. I have pretty extensive experience of inheritance tax forcing the sale of a property, and it making that sale itself expensive, as it goes. Twice. I did say above that I don't think our inheritance tax system as is works.

I'm not sure why familiarity with family businesses is relevant but my entire mother's side of my family were small-business-owning Italian immigrants to Scotland. Me, my mum, two uncles, an aunt, two cousins, one of their wives, and my maternal grandparents all worked together in three different family businesses.

Please try again. You could even do it politely?

Not Online!!! wrote:
well it's bad out of a perspective of a libertarian.

Yeah, cronies for the rich, that's what I said

Inheritance tax is perfectly fair. We double tax things all the freaking time. Sometimes we even triple tax them, or quadruple tax them, depending on how one defines "tax." But inheritance tax that hits a value as low as 500k US is just stupid. The point of inheritance tax is break up the process of accumulating wealth in the top end of society (which even right now doesn't work well cause we put so many holes in it anyone with an inheritance worth taxing just weasels their way out). Smacking down Joe the Plumber because his family home sky rocketed in value because of the housing market is turning that purpose on its head.

Someone in the UK should set out to fix that. Raise the tax to a much higher level in exchange for tighter controls on the new level so people can't weasel out of it so easily. But of course that won't happen because nothing that should be simple ever is.

 LordofHats wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
well it's bad out of a perspective of a libertarian.

Yeah, cronies for the rich, that's what I said

Inheritance tax is perfectly fair. We double tax things all the freaking time. Sometimes we even triple tax them, or quadruple tax them, depending on how one defines "tax." But inheritance tax that hits a value as low as 500k US is just stupid. The point of inheritance tax is break up the process of accumulating wealth in the top end of society (which even right now doesn't work well cause we put so many holes in it anyone with an inheritance worth taxing just weasels their way out). Smacking down Joe the Plumber because his family home sky rocketed in value because of the housing market is turning that purpose on its head.

Someone in the UK should set out to fix that. Raise the tax to a much higher level in exchange for tighter controls on the new level so people can't weasel out of it so easily. But of course that won't happen because nothing that should be simple ever is.

Yes, we do double and even triple tax stuff. That's ethically wrong.

I shouldn't be taxed both when I get my paycheck and when I spend my paycheck and just for owning stuff I bought with my paycheck. Any children I have shouldn't have to get taxed when I leave them my stuff.

My parents have a fairly nice house on a couple acres, and its worth several times what they paid for it. The unfortunate thing is that it is unlikely that myself or any of my siblings would be able to keep the house if and when we inherit it. We're probably going to be forced to sell it and all we'll get is whatever equity is left. Money is nice, and it would be a good chunk of change, but it wouldn't be worth losing the house we all grew up in.

If anything, property and inheritance tax is antithetical to the ideal of everybody owning their own home. Something everybody here who has been bagging on landlords wants for everybody. Property and inheritance tax quite often forces people out of homes.

The only way you should get taxed on property is when you sell that property, and you should only get taxed on any increase in value the property had between the time you bought it and when you sold it. If you bought a house for $100k and sold it for $200k you should only pay tax on the $100k increase.

 LordofHats wrote:
But inheritance tax that hits a value as low as 500k US is just stupid. The point of inheritance tax is break up the process of accumulating wealth in the top end of society (which even right now doesn't work well cause we put so many holes in it anyone with an inheritance worth taxing just weasels their way out). Smacking down Joe the Plumber because his family home sky rocketed in value because of the housing market is turning that purpose on its head.

Someone in the UK should set out to fix that. Raise the tax to a much higher level in exchange for tighter controls on the new level so people can't weasel out of it so easily. But of course that won't happen because nothing that should be simple ever is.

The threshold is actually lower here in the UK - it is currently £350K I believe.

Edit: Nope, it's actually £325K

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
So you inherit an ancient mingvase a house, and some other stuff, and Instantly are forced to sell going against tradition and sentimental values.

Good idea.

I agree.

Joking aside: I said private property, not personal property, so not the vase (though it should already be in a museum). I also said increased taxation, not seizure.

Furthermore, tradition is no argument against anything.

Did i talk about seizure?
NO. i talked about beeing forced to SELL becuase you then have to pay the bill for the tax which you can't really afford then.

Simply put i honestly doubt you have an idea what the effect of an inheritance tax means.Infact i doubt you even know what a family buisness is or works like.

I don't care if someone whose family own vases worth hundreds of thousands have to sell a property. I have pretty extensive experience of inheritance tax forcing the sale of a property, and it making that sale itself expensive, as it goes. Twice. I did say above that I don't think our inheritance tax system as is works.

I'm not sure why familiarity with family businesses is relevant but my entire mother's side of my family were small-business-owning Italian immigrants to Scotland. Me, my mum, two uncles, an aunt, two cousins, one of their wives, and my maternal grandparents all worked together in three different family businesses.

Please try again. You could even do it politely?

If you regard this as impolite then i frankly can't help you.

Secondly the mingvase was an exageration but stuff like memento mories fastly add up.

Thirdly: so then, did they bankrupt? Were they forced to sell to some faceless multi billion company that instantly "optimized" and fired half the people, destroying the local rural industry Basis and vastly diminishing local tax income?

Because that happened to some of my relatives.

 filbert wrote:
The threshold is actually lower here in the UK - it is currently £350K I believe.

Well, thats not much lower than $500k USD given the current exchange rate.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 filbert wrote:
The threshold is actually lower here in the UK - it is currently £350K I believe.

Well, thats not much lower than $500k USD given the current exchange rate.

I was incorrect - it's lower - £325K

 filbert wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
But inheritance tax that hits a value as low as 500k US is just stupid. The point of inheritance tax is break up the process of accumulating wealth in the top end of society (which even right now doesn't work well cause we put so many holes in it anyone with an inheritance worth taxing just weasels their way out). Smacking down Joe the Plumber because his family home sky rocketed in value because of the housing market is turning that purpose on its head.

Someone in the UK should set out to fix that. Raise the tax to a much higher level in exchange for tighter controls on the new level so people can't weasel out of it so easily. But of course that won't happen because nothing that should be simple ever is.

The threshold is actually lower here in the UK - it is currently £350K I believe.

Yeah, wow. I don't blame you or anyone else for complaining about that. That's, in the metaphorical French, fething stupider than a rattlesnake at a petty zoo.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 filbert wrote:


I was incorrect - it's lower - £325K

And it just keeps getting worse!

So what would a good threshold be if you were to raise it?

I personally couldn't even begin to agree with anything less than a couple million. Especially since its the sum total of the entire inheritance.

 Grey Templar wrote:
So what would a good threshold be if you were to raise it?

I personally couldn't even begin to agree with anything less than a couple million. Especially since its the sum total of the entire inheritance.

Nope. Couple million is basically where everyone who wants inheritance tax is (a robust system would routinely adjust for inflation and shifting market value too, but that takes work). The current US inheritance tax is maybe too high, but I'll settle for leaving it exactly where it currently is and overhauling the system so it's not so easy to avoid paying it. Hell, raise the threshold even higher, decrease the actual amount taxed, close the loopholes, and the outcome would still probably be a net positive.

Not Online!!! wrote:

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
So you inherit an ancient mingvase a house, and some other stuff, and Instantly are forced to sell going against tradition and sentimental values.

Good idea.

I agree.

Joking aside: I said private property, not personal property, so not the vase (though it should already be in a museum). I also said increased taxation, not seizure.

Furthermore, tradition is no argument against anything.

Did i talk about seizure?
NO. i talked about beeing forced to SELL becuase you then have to pay the bill for the tax which you can't really afford then.

Simply put i honestly doubt you have an idea what the effect of an inheritance tax means.Infact i doubt you even know what a family buisness is or works like.

I don't care if someone whose family own vases worth hundreds of thousands have to sell a property. I have pretty extensive experience of inheritance tax forcing the sale of a property, and it making that sale itself expensive, as it goes. Twice. I did say above that I don't think our inheritance tax system as is works.

I'm not sure why familiarity with family businesses is relevant but my entire mother's side of my family were small-business-owning Italian immigrants to Scotland. Me, my mum, two uncles, an aunt, two cousins, one of their wives, and my maternal grandparents all worked together in three different family businesses.

Please try again. You could even do it politely?

If you regard this as impolite then i frankly can't help you.

Secondly the mingvase was an exageration but stuff like memento mories fastly add up.

Thirdly: so then, did they bankrupt? Were they forced to sell to some faceless multi billion company that instantly "optimized" and fired half the people, destroying the local rural industry Basis and vastly diminishing local tax income?

Because that happened to some of my relatives.

I know it was an exaggeration. I was treating it with the frivolity it deserved. That said, I don't really care what the value is for private property. I don't care that my family had to sell on houses that my parents grew up in (because what else would we do with them?). I care that the system places a financial burden on you before you can sell them - but that you have to pay tax on the property, I think that's absolutely fine.

One business was dissolved at retirement. Two were dissolved when folk wanted to change career. The most successful one (where I worked, initially owned by an aunt and uncle then later by their sons) eventually went into administration when the bank changed overdraft terms after struggling for a while with supermarket competition (it was a pet store chain). 163 jobs lost.

So what? What does this have to do with anything under discussion?

 LordofHats wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
So what would a good threshold be if you were to raise it?

I personally couldn't even begin to agree with anything less than a couple million. Especially since its the sum total of the entire inheritance.

Nope. Couple million is basically where everyone who wants inheritance tax is (a robust system would routinely adjust for inflation and shifting market value too, but that takes work). The current US inheritance tax is maybe too high, but I'll settle for leaving it exactly where it currently is and overhauling the system so it's not so easy to avoid paying it. Hell, raise the threshold even higher, decrease the actual amount taxed, close the loopholes, and the outcome would still probably be a net positive.

See, unless you put it at a couple million you're still punishing people who can't afford the property tax just because their parents home has massively increased in value(but haven't actually gained any other wealth).

For example, my parents home is worth nearly $1.2 million. And while its a nice house, its far from the nicest house in the area so many other people will be in the same boat. Most of that value comes from the 2.5 acres. Its worth about 4 times what they bought it for 30 years ago.

I'm sure it would be nigh impossible for my siblings and I to cough up enough money to keep the home when we get to that point. Especially if the property values in the area keep climbing, which they will given its the Bay Area. Not even the last recession really hurt the property value that much, it just kept it from climbing more than usual.

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
So you inherit an ancient mingvase a house, and some other stuff, and Instantly are forced to sell going against tradition and sentimental values.

Good idea.

I agree.

Joking aside: I said private property, not personal property, so not the vase (though it should already be in a museum). I also said increased taxation, not seizure.

Furthermore, tradition is no argument against anything.

Did i talk about seizure?
NO. i talked about beeing forced to SELL becuase you then have to pay the bill for the tax which you can't really afford then.

Simply put i honestly doubt you have an idea what the effect of an inheritance tax means.Infact i doubt you even know what a family buisness is or works like.

I don't care if someone whose family own vases worth hundreds of thousands have to sell a property. I have pretty extensive experience of inheritance tax forcing the sale of a property, and it making that sale itself expensive, as it goes. Twice. I did say above that I don't think our inheritance tax system as is works.

I'm not sure why familiarity with family businesses is relevant but my entire mother's side of my family were small-business-owning Italian immigrants to Scotland. Me, my mum, two uncles, an aunt, two cousins, one of their wives, and my maternal grandparents all worked together in three different family businesses.

Please try again. You could even do it politely?

If you regard this as impolite then i frankly can't help you.

Secondly the mingvase was an exageration but stuff like memento mories fastly add up.

Thirdly: so then, did they bankrupt? Were they forced to sell to some faceless multi billion company that instantly "optimized" and fired half the people, destroying the local rural industry Basis and vastly diminishing local tax income?

Because that happened to some of my relatives.

I know it was an exaggeration. I was treating it with the frivolity it deserved. That said, I don't really care what the value is for private property. I don't care that my family had to sell on houses that my parents grew up in (because what else would we do with them?). I care that the system places a financial burden on you before you can sell them - but that you have to pay tax on the property, I think that's absolutely fine.

One business was dissolved at retirement. Two were dissolved when folk wanted to change career. The most successful one (where I worked, initially owned by an aunt and uncle then later by their sons) eventually went into administration when the bank changed overdraft terms after struggling for a while with supermarket competition (it was a pet store chain). 163 jobs lost.

So what? What does this have to do with anything under discussion?

In total?
It shows that the concept of inheritancetax as is, is terrible and damaging longterm to rural areas of a country and tax income overall.
Therefore i am surprised you still deem it agreeable.

The threshold for US estate tax was $5.5 million in 2016. No one but fringe lunatics no one listens to want it to be much lower than that. Currently the tax is $11 million, which pretty much everyone who isn't against the tax thinks to too high. As a point of comparison, in 2016 about 55-56,000 estates in the US actually qualified for estate tax. Exemptions and legal loopholes effectively tanked that number down to something link 10,000. The current tax is only applicable to about 2,000 estates, and no one knows yet how many will actually pay anything as a result of the exemptions and legal loopholes. We probably won't know for years.

No one is talking about taxing $1.2 million in assets. It's not worth it and no one is that much of a douche... Except in Britain apparently.

Not Online!!! wrote:

In total?
It shows that the concept of inheritancetax as is, is terrible and damaging longterm to rural areas of a country and tax income overall.
Therefore i am surprised you still deem it agreeable.

Sorry you've lost me.

How is a chain of pet stores going into administration evidence of inheritance tax being 'terrible and damaging longterm to rural areas of a country and tax income overall'?

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Even more outrageous than the council tax I already pay? wow

Excommunicatus wrote:
You could easily solve that problem by throwing money at the court/tribunal system, but ironically people who like to complain about the courts often also don't like to pay taxes for things like courts.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

 LordofHats wrote:

No one is talking about taxing $1.2 million in assets. It's not worth it.

Really? Wow. That's £950k. It'd buy you a very attractive property in London. Only 16,119 sold for £1m+ in 2017. 90,000 homes were sold just in June. Setting a limit that high would lose the treasury tons of money in the UK.

nfe wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

No one is talking about taxing $1.2 million in assets. It's not worth it.

Really? Wow. That's £950k. It'd buy you a very attractive property in central London. Only 16,119 sold for £1m+ last year. Setting a limit that high would lose the treasury tons of money in the UK.

Oh, it's definitely a lot. No joke.

But I suspect some cultural differences probably come into play here since we're talking US and UK at once. I consider myself a pretty "feth the rich with a rusty rod and deny them medical care like they deny it to everyone else" kind of guy (exaggerating... maybe ), and I'm not on board with an inheritance tax that hits any lower than very well off multi-million dollar estates. I'm not interested in punishing children from inheriting from their parents. I just don't want a society that's blind to the inequities and power disparity that comes from generational accumulations of wealth in the highest stratum of society. Power is power. A rich douche bag down the street is just as capable of stealing your quality of life and liberty as anyone in the government. It's a natural check on the power of the rich to take some of their wealth and put it elsewhere from time to time, like education or clean drinking water... not that that gak ever works out mind you, because again, the most simple things in the world are never simple. People have to complicate the feth out of it.

Or, you abolish private property and just remove the institutional framework that allows the dragons to hoard their piles of coin.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Or, you abolish private property and just remove the institutional framework that allows the dragons to hoard their piles of coin.

All that does is mean there is only 1 dragon, the government. Which is far worse than what we have now.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Or, you abolish private property and just remove the institutional framework that allows the dragons to hoard their piles of coin.

All that does is mean there is only 1 dragon, the government.

Alternative view: it's everyone.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Or, you abolish private property and just remove the institutional framework that allows the dragons to hoard their piles of coin.

Nyet comrade.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Or, you abolish private property and just remove the institutional framework that allows the dragons to hoard their piles of coin.

All that does is mean there is only 1 dragon, the government. Which is far worse than what we have now.

Amen, but these people are convinced that the government actually cares about them..

 LordofHats wrote:

 filbert wrote:


I was incorrect - it's lower - £325K

And it just keeps getting worse!

That is £325k tax free, after which everything over it gets taxed at 40%.

So leaving someone a £1m house means that you are paying 40% on (£1,000,000 - £325,000) = £675k left over. That comes out to a tax of £270k. That seems pretty high, but:

If you leave everything above that £325k to a spouse, civil partner, charity or community amateur sports club then they pay no inheritance tax.
If you give your home to children or grandchildren the tax free amount can increase up to £475k.
If your estate is below the tax free threshold you leave your estate to your spouse or civil partner, then the unused threshold gets added onto their tax-free threshold.
If you leave 10% of your estates net worth to charity then the tax rate is reduced to 36%.
And finally, you can give gifts to people. If you die 7 years after the gift was given, no inheritance tax is paid on it. If you die before that 7 year cut-off, the amount of inheritance tax you pay depends on how long ago the gift was given.

So if you and your spouse both own half of that £1m property, you can both give £475k of it to your kids, tax free. Meaning you are actually only paying inheritance tax on the remaining £50k.

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

In total?
It shows that the concept of inheritancetax as is, is terrible and damaging longterm to rural areas of a country and tax income overall.
Therefore i am surprised you still deem it agreeable.

Sorry you've lost me.

How is a chain of pet stores going into administration evidence of inheritance tax being 'terrible and damaging longterm to rural areas of a country and tax income overall'?

I have worked part time on my village / small cities administration.
The effects of buisness, local based producing buisness, or stores regardless, going out due to taxation or beeing forced to sell has a severe impact on money the local branch of government has.


Due to this the area died a slow painfull death, money got tighter, social spending had to be cut to the most baseline.
Infact even the infrastructure has suffered.
Only recently due to higher living costs in the greater Zürich area more income was generated due to workers beeing forced out of the City into the more rural parts ( my Region) which was in no way enough to stem the bleeding of money though.