[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.