The Chronicles of Rishi

Nothing says "Long Term Decisions" than reading documents, in a suit and tie, on a bench on the USS Midway, which is a floating museum in San Diego Harbour*, whilst you were there in March 2023…

https://www.midway.org/exhibits-acti...s/f-14-tomcat/

*I recognised the F-14 Tomcat, as we visited San Diego (and the Midway) a couple of years sgo

A retired jet on the deck of a retired ship. Message?

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Chris

A retired jet on the deck of a retired ship. Message?

California dreaming?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3...a03c35b2b346a0

Rishi Sunak is drawing up plans to slash inheritance tax, which his officials have called “the most hated tax in Britain”.

Cutting the levy before eventually abolishing it entirely is one of a raft of crowd-pleasing announcements being considered before next month’s Conservative Party conference.

As part of his pledge to announce a series of long-term decisions designed to change Britain, Sunak would frame the policy as an “aspirational offer to voters” ahead of the general election.

Inheritance tax is charged at 40 per cent for estates worth more than £325,000, with an extra £175,000 allowance towards a main residence if it is passed to children or grandchildren. A married couple can share their allowance, meaning parents can pass on £1 million to their children without any tax being paid...

… The most recent Treasury figures show that only 3.76 per cent of UK deaths result in an inheritance tax charge. However, YouGov polling for The Times suggests that people significantly overestimate their likelihood of having to pay. About a third (31 per cent) of people think that their assets will be enough to attract inheritance tax when they die, and 15 per cent expect to receive an inheritance large enough to attract the tax. Only 5 per cent of voters said the threshold for inheritance tax was £1 million.

This would, on the latest figures available, benefit 27,000 estates…

https://www.gov.uk/government/statis...ics-commentary

In totally unrelated news, if Inheritance tax was abolished, Rishi Sinai’s daughters would be £290 million better off when he died…

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Hugh

In totally unrelated news, if Inheritance tax was abolished, Rishi Sinai’s daughters would be £290 million better off when he died…

Who gives a flying….

Inheritance tax is a racket. Everything I have amounted throughout my life, in which I have not ever had a day unemployed, the only money ever received was £10K from my late mothers very small estate, otherwise not received a penny that I didn’t earn.

I’ve been taxed on everything I have already earned, on some things multiple times. What gives the state the right to tax me again when I want to pass on my hard work to my kids so they have a decent start. That’s what I’ve worked for.

If Rishi scraps inheritance tax, along with his roll back on net-zero, he’s going the right way. With any luck he’ll come up with more. He might even get a hung Parliament if he’s lucky.

This week’s diarrhoea of policy announcements is looking increasingly like a core-vote strategy, in a desperate attempt to avoid them getting wiped out at the next general election. I can’t believe he thinks inheritance tax cuts actually have broad appeal.

---------- Post added at 21:42 ---------- Previous post was at 21:35 ----------

Originally Posted by Pierre

I’ve been taxed on everything I have already earned, on some things multiple times. What gives the state the right to tax me again when I want to pass on my hard work to my kids so they have a decent start. That’s what I’ve worked for.

You haven’t been taxed on the truly colossal capital gain you’ve made on your family home (assuming you’ve been a mortgage-paying homeowner, and I’m pretty sure you have).

A massive chunk of the wealth inequality in this country arises from Boomers and Gen X’s who got on the property ladder before the mid 1990s when an average home was worth three times average wages (or less). Today it’s in excess of 7 times average wages.

You didn’t earn that. Neither did I. Both of us have benefited from government policy deliberately crafted to make private homes into assets, and to generate a sense of wealth.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Chris

This week’s diarrhoea of policy announcements is looking increasingly like a core-vote strategy, in a desperate attempt to avoid them getting wiped out at the next general election. I can’t believe he thinks inheritance tax cuts actually have broad appeal.

Well it works for me. I hope in their desperation they come up with more stuff.

Rishi, should be treating every other month as giveaway month. There’s loads of stuff he could do, cheaply too.

The majority Labour has to overturn is so big, the Tories just need to hang on to a few of those seats, and we get a Labour govt without a majority, or less likely a hung parliament.

Rishi, should shamelessly go on the offensive.

---------- Post added at 22:30 ---------- Previous post was at 21:47 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

You haven’t been taxed on the truly colossal capital gain you’ve made on your family home (assuming you’ve been a mortgage-paying homeowner, and I’m pretty sure you have).

“Colossal”…..let’s not assume anything Chris, we both know where that leads.

We bought our current property in 2008, ( I wasn’t going to give actual values but I think I will, and everyone can judge me) at the height of the market for £400K, and everything went south. Probably lost a third or more of its value. But we we weren’t selling, so We spent around £250K extending and converting.

In the last 15yrs we’ve spent at least another 200K. At least, probably more. Improving the curtilage of the property. Not forgetting how much you spend just maintaining everything. Not to sell on as an investment, but to enjoy and for my families future enjoyment and security.

We’re not finished, currently redoing the bathrooms, and I hope to do more, maybe even build an Annexe, but i reckon we’ve spent well over a million and more, upgrading and maintenance.

The property, is probably only worth about a million. This is Yorkshire a stone barn with near an acre of land. Not a 3 bed semi on London probably worth more. So I’ve made no money, and not looked to make money. It’s about quality.

So don’t tell me I’ve made a colossal amount of money when I haven’t.

And I have paid tax when I bought it, and on everything I’ve done to it ever since. And I shouldn’t have to pay tax when my kids get it.

Originally Posted by Pierre

So don’t tell me I’ve made a colossal amount of money when I haven’t.

Fair point in your case. In mine, as things stand when I am mortgage free I am likely to have an asset worth about 2.5 - 3x the total I’ve paid in mortgage and interest on 3 houses over about 35 years. And I am no DIY fan. All I’ve ever done is maintenance, I’ve never done anything deliberately to improve any house I’ve lived in.

At a population level my point stands. There is a vast, vast pool of unearned wealth in primary residences that are exempt from capital gains and are in real terms worth enormously more than when their owners purchased them. Our generation, and our parents, absolutely have coined it in, not only from the cash value of our homes increasing but from spells of inflation in the 1980s and again today, inflating away the mortgage burden.

The only sort of tax anyone ever pays on any of this is stamp duty, although this is a tax on purchase of property, not a tax on the value of the one they’re selling.

Notwithstanding any of the above, the abolition of inheritance tax wouldn’t have a revolutionary effect on you or me. It would however make a massive difference to the super-rich few, who already enjoy a great deal of unearned privilege thanks in no small regard to unearned wealth. The real societal benefit of a functional inheritance tax regime isn’t the amount of money it brings in in any given year but in its capacity to limit the development of a society where power and influence is concentrated in the hands of those whose great grandparents did something worthwhile.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Chris

At a population level my point stands.

Don’t disagree. I think within the M25 absolutely. Outside of that the results are far more variable depending on location.

Our generation, and our parents, absolutely have coined it in, not only from the cash value of our homes increasing but from spells of inflation in the 1980s and again today, inflating away the mortgage burden.

Again, I think that is a massive generalisation. My parents left me £10K, welcome, but they did not coin it in. My spouse……….nothing yet, but her mother just diagnosed with dementia we are expecting her legacy to be spent in care costs. Your assertion may be true in some circumstances but it is by no means the rule, and I find you attitude……quite flippant.

The only sort of tax anyone ever pays on any of this is stamp duty, although this is a tax on purchase of property, not a tax on the value of the one they’re selling.

That’s just wrong, factually incorrect and disingenuous.

The purchase of the property is just the first thing in the life of ownership. Absolutely everything after buying the property is taxed……everything.

You tell me anything that I pay for in regards to the property after the initial purchase, that is tax free.

Notwithstanding any of the above, the abolition of inheritance tax wouldn’t have a revolutionary effect on you or me.

It would help my kids

It would however make a massive difference to the super-rich few, who already enjoy a great deal of unearned privilege thanks in no small regard to unearned wealth.

In that case, define “super rich” and deal with it, rather than go after the working class that have worked and are trying pass on their efforts to their kids.

The real societal benefit of a functional inheritance tax regime isn’t the amount of money it brings in in any given year but in its capacity to limit the development of a society where power and influence is concentrated in the hands of those whose great grandparents did something worthwhile.

Forget grand parents, what about “parents”?

I had a shit childhood, in Thatchers Britain in Liverpool, in the 80’s.

I left Liverpool in 89 as a teenager, and I’ve worked my bollocks off, with my wife, to transcend that, to give my kids, that are only 12 & 8 a better start in life than I had, and hopefully have chance to get on in a really difficult world, and you seem to advocate penalising that.

You seem to be making it out that I, and others like me, are akin to Jacob Rees-Mogg.

You need to take a step back, and rethink your position.

This is the issue with inheritance tax, it’s a blunt instrument.

I am intimately familiar with the Liverpool of the 1980s, though to be honest a trip to the Littlewoods basement cafe in Church Street was a major treat compared to our usual forays around Birkenhead Market.

Your argument about tax paid on the things you buy for your house is besides the point. Unfortunately you chose to cut out the part of my post where I pointed out that I stand to have massively increased the value of my home simply by living in it in the long term and doing only what has been absolutely necessary to maintain it. I get that you’ve bought a fixer-upper and feel aggrieved at the idea of inheritance tax eating away at some of the capital you’ve invested in it but I still say you’re making yourself, as an outlier, to be too much of a case study. I don’t believe your experience is typical of the majority. Nor do I think it’s in any way confined to the south east of England. Even in the 1980s there were houses with swimming pools in the leafier Merseyside suburbs, some of them within walking distance of the Grammar school I was lucky enough to attend.

And if you’re going to accuse me of being flippant, maybe don’t do it in the same post as suggesting I’m characterising you as Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Enough, anyway. Bedtime.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Chris

Enough, anyway. Bedtime.

Agreed, just come in from taking the dog out.

I don’t think we’re a million miles apart.

I just think there should be a better solution than inheritance tax, as it stands.

[ianch99]

Let's be clear, the "super rich" are really not in this IHT discussion. They are wealthy enough to have ways & means to circumvent this - look at the Duke of Westminster and his £9bn inheritance as an example.

The real problem for the rest of us is there are enough people, predominantly Tory voters, who only care about themselves and their own. This is who Sunak is targeting here.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

California dreaming?

All the leaves are brown ....

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

All the leaves are brown ....

There's a patch of snow on the ground.

[1andrew1]

I don't think this will be a major concern financially for the Conservatives but symbolic is that there a political cost to delaying climate change policies.

Major donor won't back Tories after net zero U-turn

The former biggest donor to the Tories has revealed why he will not be donating any more money to the party after Rishi Sunak's net zero U-turn.

Mr Caudwell criticised the delayed petrol and diesel car ban, urging investment in environmental tech to boost GDP while tackling climate change.

John Caudwell, founder of Phones4u, donated £500,000 to the party before the 2019 election. The former will be far more electorally palatable than the latter.

He told Sky News: "I'll donate if I feel strongly enough about the issues that are in force in that day, the way the Tories are performing at the moment.

"It's not just a question of whether I donate, it's a question of whether I support by my vote. And that's a very depressing situation since I believed in Tory policies and principles for the whole of my life. Now I find myself diverging away from those principles because of this climatic issue which we can bury a head in the sand if we want to."

https://news.sky.com/story/politics-...forms-12593360

---------- Post added at 15:12 ---------- Previous post was at 15:09 ----------

Originally Posted by Pierre

Agreed, just come in from taking the dog out.

I don’t think we’re a million miles apart.

I just think there should be a better solution than inheritance tax, as it stands.

I think there's a world of difference in abolishing inheritance tax on estates say up to £900k and abolishing it entirely