Anger Management
belief that the tax was deeply iniquitous. And rightly so. Why, when we have paid tax on our earnings throughout our lives, should we be taxed on the same money again upon our deaths? There is nothing wrong with taking legal steps to avoid IHT - as every family would, given the chance. It’s the tax itself that’s immoral. Isn’t this the message Cameron should have been shouting from the rooftops? Instead, he scuttled around as if he had got his hand caught in the till, and then, in an attempt to extricate himself, having hoisted himself by his own petard, he set the worrying precedent of publishing his tax returns. By throwing this tasty morsel to the hounds of class warfare, did he not risk sharpening their appetite for more, until the pressure grows for all politicians to lay bare the details of their own private finances? At this rate, the clear danger is that people with private means will no longer
wish to enter public life for fear of being mauled by the ever-hungry pack. If that happens, the field will be left clear for politicians who know nothing of wealth creation and are, effectively, unemployable in any other profession.
“What amazes me most in this debacle is that the Tories could not hit a barn door at fifty paces.” Leaving an inheritance is a positive choice, which should be encouraged and facilitated, not punished. It is clearly good for our society that parents take an interest in helping their offspring to secure their futures. It means more people have the safety net of savings, rather than relying on the safety net of the taxpayer when things go wrong or times are bad. The idea of seizing people’s savings and homes when they die might appeal to hard-left ideologues like Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, but to most voters it looks like opportunistic big government at its least attractive, snaffling money when people are at their most vulnerable by rebranding death as a transaction.
If you choose to leave some money or assets to your children rather than spending it all on yourself in retirement, you should be congratulated for your selflessness and sense of family responsibility – not hammered with tax. If you pay tax on earnings, then pay tax for getting interest on your savings, then pay tax for buying and maintaining your home, you shouldn’t have to pay tax again for the simple act of dying. What amazes me most in this debacle is that the Tories could not hit a barn door at fifty paces. Here they are with a wholly unexpected majority, absolutely no opposition whatsoever and a public and press consumed with the EU, and yet they fail to make the big changes that are needed and, in the main, are fully supported by the public. IInstead, they split on Brexit and start knocking seven bells out of each other. As long as there are unjust laws, the majority with something to leave to the next generation will do all they can to ensure that happens and no amount of laws, taxes or press blood baths is going to change it. And nor should it. It is a deeply unjust, unfair and downright immoral tax and should be scrapped tomorrow.
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