I'm all for this kind of illuminati shit as we get closer to the election. Scots will remember this ex-ambassador guy in the referendum. Looks like he's gone the full Icke.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/04/false-flag-is-starting/

The point of a false flag is that you make a giant event that no one can ignore then blame someone else as the pretext for whatever outcome you're after. If MI5 were trying to influence the election they'd probably aim higher than daubing a window.

Or would they?

*raises eyebrow, takes drag on ciggie*

They're cutting taxes for anyone with a home worth more than £325,000 and it goes up to a million. Which covers a lot of people, not all of whom are going to be especially rich. That's a standard family home price now. People could have bought in the 60s, 70s, 80s or early 90s and just seen their small, modest property shoot up in value to that price and beyond.

Edit - monkey. Our home isn't quite worth that much, but my parents will be loving it.

Has anyone seen the labour manifesto? Theres an Adam Curtis tone about the cover.

It is where they've kept their income though because of the rate of return. They could have invested it elsewhere and rented but kept it in their house, so yes it does have something to do with their income. So it's not like the rise in value of people's assets is a complete fluke. And it's not just the increase in value that's an issue. It's the actual money put in. My house could be worth £500,000 when I buy it and worth £500,000 when I die. I still don't want the state taxing the money that I've put into it again. 

I don't like inheritance tax as I just think that it's something the state should keep their noses out of. I would much prefer that inheritance tax would be abolished and tax rates during the course of my life are increased to account for the shortfall. It's just an issue of principle. People work to provide for their children. People pay tax as part of this process. After that, people pass what they've got left onto their children (which is why they've worked so hard in the first place), it's not clear to me what the moral justification is for why the state then gets into the middle of this and taxes assets that have already been through the tax filter.

To prevent wealth accumulating at the top, although it must be said, the state has done a fucking awful job of that.

That's assuming that the income you pass onto your children has been taxed in the first place. If it's just a family fortune rolling on through the generations, there's nothing to stop it accumulating forever.

Yossarian wrote:

That's assuming that the income you pass onto your children has been taxed in the first place. If it's just a family fortune rolling on through the generations, there's nothing to stop it accumulating forever.

You're right. Including current Inheritance Tax rules.

mistercrayon wrote:

@monkey. I don't understand the necessity or reasoning for the provide for their kids re: inheritance. When some one dies naturally it's likely they would have given everything they could have in the fifty years Previous to their kids as they were growing up.

 
They wouldn't sell the roof over their head though. Unless they were doing it to try and bypass inheritance tax.

mistercrayon wrote:

It's also a benefit that poor people don't have access to. It further divides and creates more inequality.

Yeah well there is this. We don't live in a socialist utopia, but a society mixed between private and public ownership. But again, tax at source, give the proceeds to poor people, let people keep the stuff they've worked for and give it to their family when they die.

Funkstain wrote:

Monkey: you talk about inheritance tax as a matter of principle. Your dislike of it stemming from the principle that people work to provide for their children. You also talk about things that should be taxed and shouldn't be. Addressing the first one: you're right, it is a matter of principle. Mine is that encouraging a divide between haves and have-nots (which zero inheritance definitely does) is bad for society overall, and that one's love for one's children is irrelevant, on principle, in this case. To clarify: taxing richer people more money, however they come about this wealth, is progressive and fair, to my mind. Zapping inheritance tax ensures that a significant amount of richer people's wealth is locked in to their family and so they end up not paying enough. You say make up the shortfall in PAYE, but it's too easy to build up enormous wealth in property and land and assets, so it becomes a sort of officially sanctioned tax avoidance policy. It is of benefit only to those with wealth. Bear in mind that it's a tax: it doesn't confiscate all inheritance. If you're rich when you die, your kids will still be rich, they'll just have to pay tax on their unearned income. As for things that should be taxed and things that shouldn't: I don't understand the division between, for example, property and dividend income from shares. If you earn a return on investment, outside of an ISA, you pay tax on it. Yet you do not on property that you live in. Why is this? Is this a good thing? When are you likely to realise that benefit - oh yes, when you die and it gets sold and the benefit passed on to your kids. So isn't inheritance tax a form of delayed capital gains tax, and therefore morally completely justifiable?

Being in favour of Inheritance Tax doesn't give you a monopoly on this position. Does 0% IHT encourage division if income tax is 90% for top earners, for instance. You're all muddled up. I've already said I think it's better to tax people more in their lifetime to make up for the shortfall than to tax the bereaved. Although the thing that a lot of people don't seem to get on this is that people work hard for their children. There's a whole chunk of problems with Conservative thinking but a more traditional conservative value that predates even Thatcher is that allowing people to pass the proceeds of their work on to their family encourages people to work harder and contribute more. This isn't bullshit, it's a massive motivating factor behind people's career choices. It's right behind putting a roof over their head and putting food on the table. There's always a balance between this and making things fair for people who are born without the advantage of a parent who can provide a comfortable life for them. I am fully in favour of your opportunities in life being determined ENTIRELY by your abilities, interests etc. Money shouldn't come into any part of your education or life chances. I fail to see how taking away people's homes achieves this better than a big old hike in income tax. 

As for the CGT point, the money should be taxed when the house is sold. This happens anyway. People don't pay CGT on potential capital based on a rise in the value of property. If the kids sell the family home, tax that. If the parent sells the family home before they die, tax that. If the kids want to live in the home their parents were living in, if the kids want to raise their own families in the house they were raised in, don't tax that.

Following a modicum of research, it appears that it is quite easy to sell an inherited house without paying CGT:
https://www.gov.uk/tax-property-money-shares-you-inherit/property

Simply tell HMRC that the inherited house is your "main" house. Sell it, reap the rewards, and "move" to your old house. Still fair?

Yes this is another point. However Monkey's and Worstall's (article writer) point about passing something on to their children / dynasty being a major motivating factor in the "value they add to society" as described by Worstall, is something worth addressing isn't it?

Maybe it's just bullshit - maybe that "value" is made up economics rubbish and in any case society should be built on principles of fairness (who decides!) rather than cold economical "facts" or whatever.

I mean can anyone formulate a coherent argument against the line that Walmart has been of huge wealth benefit to the United States (when defining wealth as "actual real worth"), in terms of the lowering of retail prices? Not a challenge just interested, I have an instinctive dislike / bad feeling about it but cannot articulate it well.

I skimmed that Walmart article. The cheap prices are being paid for by lowered supply costs, probably meaning that an American family is getting cheaper goods because Chinese workers are working 6 and a half days a week. I have no idea though. Someone's paying for it somewhere. How that affects things in the round, god knows. Badly, I suspect. 

Funkstain wrote:

Following a modicum of research, it appears that it is quite easy to sell an inherited house without paying CGT: https://www.gov.uk/tax-property-money-shares-you-inherit/property Simply tell HMRC that the inherited house is your "main" house. Sell it, reap the rewards, and "move" to your old house. Still fair?

This sounds illegal.

mistercrayon wrote:

The children thing is a complete smokescreen. It's protection to dynasty. And when we say children we are really mostly talking about David Cameron aged people.

Your Camerons, Goldsmiths, Rothschilds and the like are not worried about inheritance tax in the slightest. Their assets are out of reach from the tax man. 
The average UK house price is £272,000. In London, the average price for a flat is something like £450,000 and a house is something like half a million. These are average prices, paid by people on average incomes in average jobs. I don't think it's a massive issue, or a massive burden on the people who have to pay it. It doesn't even generate that much money. But I don't like it and I think it should be replaced with higher income tax rates.

That's so shit Gonz. Sorry to hear about your arm. Totes possible you could have broken it without a lot of pain, I know someone who went a week with a broken arm before anyone realised.

Maybe your trust is a bit crap? Not much help when you're sick/ill and in that area I realise. It's just I've broken almost every bone going and never had anything like that before.