onlooker

Traditionally, gifts are not taxed in the UK, but are subject to the 7 year rule on avoiding IHT. Gifts given within 7 years of death are subject to a declining tax take. HMRC taking a cut of every gift anybody makes is regarded as a step too far. I am no tax expert, but if your parents continued to live in the house, and did not pay a commercial (and taxable) rent to the trust for doing so, it counts as a gift with reservation, and thus would still be subject to IHT on death.

You have evidence IHT is a bad joke? I thought it was a tax which was easy to collect and police, whereas most other taxes are full of loopholes and relatively easy to evade.

Life expectancy for women in the UK is more than 3.5 years higher than for men. The fairest arrangement would be if men retired that much earlier.

You mean like Luxemburg, Switzerland, Ireland and Panama?

It might be called "Inheritence Tax"? I'm afraid you can't have it both ways. If kids in London are deprived of a source of finance (ie a legacy) to buy expensive housing, they might think kids in the north are having it easy.

All the increased price of housing is due to (Government caused) debasement of the currency, and (Government caused) filling the land with 10 million immigrants. And you want to be taxed on that?

Harnessing the beats of butterfly wings probably. Do keep up. Have you looked at Gridwatch lately? Virtually no wind generation for days, very little for months, and we are running the 3 remaining coal-fired stations as hard as they can go (even though they will all be closed by September 2024).

Planes are taxed, but the airlines have made a good job of making sure they are not the ones paying. A long-haul first-class flight now attracts APD (air passenger duty) of £528. There is also the cost of parking at airports, and dropping and picking up passengers, which presumably is reflected in reduced landing fees.

The Poll Tax was one of those ideas which was good in theory, but terrible in practise. It was dreampt up by Oliver Letwin, who never thought up a single successful strategy and probably more than anyone was responsible for the chaos on Conservative thinking over many years. The simple problem was getting the tax out of people who did not want to pay, and it could not be charged against the houses they lived in. But this thread is about Major, who was not ineffectual. He drove through the Maastricht treaty, dividing th nation for a generation. He also drove through complete rail privatization - say no more, even Thatcher didn't go with that policy.

Evidence that the white ones are rioting?

It's only the black ones rioting and burning, isn't it? It's the Zulu way to fight first, and think afterwards, isn't it?

I'll leave this one up. 'Labour to blame for John Major'? You haven't a clue.

Major was Thatcher's Chancellor after Lawson resigned following his very public disagreement with Alan Walters mainly about the ERM. Major was very pro ERM. Thatcher was forced out after her Bruges speech (Sept 88) when it was clear that she did not want the EEC to change into the EU. From Wikipedia: In July 1989, Thatcher removed Geoffrey Howe as foreign secretary after he and Lawson had forced her to agree to a plan for Britain to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Britain joined the ERM in October 1990. On 1 November 1990, Howe, by then the last remaining member of Thatcher's original 1979 cabinet, resigned from his position as deputy prime minister, ostensibly over her open hostility to moves towards European Monetary Union.[263][265] In his resignation speech on 13 November, which was instrumental in Thatcher's downfall,[266] Howe attacked Thatcher's openly dismissive attitude to the government's proposal for a new European currency competing against existing currencies (a "hard ECU"):

You want the truth? Thatcher was ejected by the Tory Party because she had woken up to the fact that the EU under Delors was hell bent on moving to a unitary EU state, with a single currency etc etc. All her main ministers wanted that, but she didn't, so she had to go. They compromised on a successor who seemed to be competent and seemed to be a Conservative, and seemed to be a strong monetarist. But in reality Major was a committed Europhile and put the Pound into the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) at the wrong time and at the wrong rate. on the wrong assumption that the Germans would bale the whole EU economy out. They refused, the Chancellor (Norman Lamont, knicknamed 'poor badger' (you can see why)) had the impossible task of trying to keep the Pound in the ERM to satisfy John Major, which required interest rates of 15%, which looked like devastating the economy. But it was unsustainable. Only George Soros had the inside knowledge, betting on devaluation, and so walked away with our billions when the UK inevitably crashed out of the ERM. Major then then put Ken Clarke in charge of the Exchequer, who cut back so much on investment and spending that there was so much money accummulated in the Treasury, but all the people felt poor. So they voted Labour, and Gordon Brown spent all that money on things that nobody can remember. What do I think of John Major? Quite obviously the most incompetent Prime Minister of the 20th Century, against stiff competition.

The big difference between public and private employment, and which is almost impossible to quantify, is the redundancy risk. Private employees are likely to have shorter working lives, and be sacked several times. They may be made redundant in theior 50's when other job opportunities are limited, and their health failing. They cannot continue pension rights from one employer to another, but must start again. In the days of DB pensions, this was a big downside. That is why there had to be a premium for working in the private sector. Public employees, I claim, are much less likely to be sacked, and if they move between schools, or hospitals, or different parts of the CS, their pension accrual rights are unaffected.

It does matter because: 1) A state pension will be uprated in line with inflation, or even with earnings, and carries no risk. Whereas a private pension with annuity purchase and inflation indexation is extremely extremely expensive, or a private pension with drawdown is very risky. 2) Most lower paid workers get a much better deal from the state pension, and have to put in comparitively little money for good benefits.

The point about the British pension system is that it is highly redistributional. I contributed to a contracted in scheme for my highly paid whole working career, so since I reached retirement age in 2018 I receive a pension using the old scheme (because it is worth more than the new 'flat rate' pension) of £10868/year. Compare and contrast with my wife, who has raised children and had a limited range of generally low paid work, retired under the new 'flat rate' pension, and gets c.£9300. So my whole working life at senior positions is worth an extra £1500/year. Edit to add, as I understand it, the SERPS element in my calculation will not be uprated with inflation as generously as the basic pension element. So my pension will over time lose out in comparison with my wife's.

Unfortunately there are some people in this World (many quite influential and otherwise intelligent) who are just on the look-out to be offended.

The campaign, led by former policeman Kash Singh who is chief executive and founder of One Britain One Nation (OBON), says it needs the support of schools to “celebrate the day in the spirit it is intended”. The site says “OBON is devoted to galvanising the efforts of people from all backgrounds to rejoice in their pride in Great Britain.” The campaign’s supporters include actor Joanna Lumley, MP Brandon Lewis, and former MPs David Steel and Norman Tebbit. So this is the brainchild of somebody of the Sikh community trying to transcend the cultural, racial and ethnic divisions in the UK. And you don't approve of it? Hmm.

Because a smaller proportion of that 50% are likely to vote in a general election. Also possibly their votes are less concentrated, being spread across Labour, LibDem, Green, SNP, Communist etc. Whereas the vote of the other 50% tends to be more concentrated on the Tories.

Correct. The ludicrously low interest rates also enable Governments across the World to borrow huge amounts to finance their spending plans, and asset strippers to buy Morrisons supermarket using borrowed money. Low interest rates have also put rocket fuel into house prices.

The Chancellor needs the money to give to his friend next door, who has developed rather extravagant ways. A real break from traditional Conservative spending habits.

Possibly, but I think the Chancellor really, really, needs the money this time.

And if the same limits and taxation were fairly applied to public sector final salary schemes, the effects would be very severe.

You are right about people's attitude to pensions. It is a shame. The £50,000 figure would include all income during retirement or semi-retirement, not just pensions. £50,000 sounds a lot at present, but if the future inflation rate takes off in the way pessimists are suggesting, it may become quite normal quite soon. Recent Chancellors have not raised income tax bands in line with inflation, as they did in the past.