Tim Newark
about before next week’s budget. Only now in April 2017 are the Tories finally poised to deliver on that pledge made 10 years previously on inheritance tax with the tax free limit rising in stages to £500,000 per individual by 2020.
But many are of the opinion that inheritance tax is fundamentally wrong and should be abolished. Another “death tax” is the last thing Britain needs.
Yes, there is a social care crisis looming as our population grows older. It must be addressed but there are other more direct ways of paying for it.
We will have to retire later and the gold-plated pensions enjoyed by public-sector workers must be cut back. Why should people in the private sector – many without any pension provision at all – subsidise the more generous pensions of government workers? It just doesn’t seem fair and must be severely curtailed, especially those pensions of government managers earning hundreds of thousands of pounds. A cap should be introduced on public sector pensions.
The ballooning costs of the NHS must be strictly analysed and some attempt made at charging those people who abuse the service. If you wilfully miss an appointment with your GP you should pay for it. Paying for a service makes you value it more and though the principle of a free NHS is admirable, in an age of rocketing care costs most people understand the necessity to bring in some form of charging system.
Just as more and more people on modest incomes elect to pay for private education for their children so there should be tax incentives to encourage other people to pay for their own social care.
At the moment there is the sense that we are paying more and more for less and less. Council tax is going up, ostensibly to pay for social care but with the regularity of refuse collections being cut back we are getting less for our money.
Some of my neighbours say they are going to stop leaving their rubbish out for collection and take it themselves to the nearest dump.
British people on the whole are independently minded and want to look after themselves. They save for a rainy day and really don’t need the government helping itself to that nest egg. What would really help these diligent savers is to see interest rates go up so they could generate a little more income from this money.
RECENT rises in insurance costs is another painful side effect of a decade of abnormally low interest rates. Compensation for those injured, which was once thought enough for them to live on, is no longer sufficient thanks to low interest rates and is a further burden for government and the taxpayer.
Low interest rates only make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Philip Hammond needs to point out this worsening social cost to Mark Carney at the Bank of England.
A raid on life savings is not the answer. This Government should be encouraging people on modest incomes to save more money so they can look after themselves and their families without becoming a burden on the state. A “death tax” on their estate is putting out exactly the wrong message.
Theresa May, who wants to be the champion of humble people doing the right thing, should urge her Chancellor that this would not help them at all.
‘It punishes people for doing the right thing’