Ben Goldacre powerfully makes the case for inheritance tax
Doctor and popular science author Ben Goldacre: “All tax is annoying. Here are 6 reasons why inheritance tax is okay.”
1. We’ve lived through an era of appalling growth in income and asset inequality. Locking that in for a 2nd generation is very bad news.
— ben goldacre (@bengoldacre) April 12, 2015
2. Growth in house value is generously excluded from capital gains because you need to live in it. When you’re dead, that excuse is gone.
— ben goldacre (@bengoldacre) April 12, 2015
3. Housing wealth derives from the value of the land, which rises because of the actions of everyone in the country, not you.
— ben goldacre (@bengoldacre) April 12, 2015
4. Caring for the old is very costly. The old didn’t foresee this, and didn’t pay tax to fund it. Housing wealth will do nicely.
— ben goldacre (@bengoldacre) April 12, 2015
5. A country where you get ahead best by luck and inheritance, rather than hard work, is a lazy unfair country that will fail.
— ben goldacre (@bengoldacre) April 12, 2015
6. I totally get the primordial desire to do your best for your kids, but if your plan is to do that with banknotes, you’re doing it wrong.
— ben goldacre (@bengoldacre) April 12, 2015
That is all.
— ben goldacre (@bengoldacre) April 12, 2015
Nicely put though it makes for a much better argument that such transfers of wealth should be taxed rather than as an argument that inheritance tax is the best way to do this. The alternative is a tax on the recipients of inheritance largesse, rather than on the estate that is handing it out.
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