Date published: 2005/03/12
The BBC says:
The number of properties worth more than the inheritance tax (IHT) threshold could nearly double to four million by 2015, the Halifax has said.
The threshold for paying inheritance tax, currently £263,000, has not been keeping pace with house prices.
As a result, the amount of money the government makes from IHT has risen from £1.6bn to £3.3bn since 1997.
...
The Halifax calculated that the IHT threshold would be £390,000 if it had been increased in line with house price inflation over the past 10 years.
More special pleading from the financial services industry for less tax on things that (indirectly) affect their business. Needless to say the IHT threshold is arbitrary and the tax rate above the threshold (40%) is arbitrary, but everything to do with tax is arbitrary. Perhaps the "principle" should be that everything gets indexed with inflation. That might mean that we could get rid of all the civil servants who spend all their time tinkering with the tax rules (and perhaps we could get rid of Gordon Brown as well). The government is addicted to tax and its entire strategy is to suck up additional tax from groups who don't complain loudly enough to the media. (The biggest victims currently being car drivers, smokers and people who don't breed like rabbits.)
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