IHT - part of the problem. What about carousel fraud?

Tiggs_2

hardpressed wrote:

Where I think IT is unfair is that a modest 3 bed house in parts of the country can be worth well over the IT limit, the same house elsewhere can be well below the limit, that doesn't seem fair to me.

but its swings and roundabouts - my parents house is in the south east and is expensive only because of its location = big IHT problem (if their son wasnt an IHT adviser) so that could be regarded "unfair" (the IHT issue...not who their son is )

.........however, they now sell it and move to Wales and buy a massive barn conversion with loads of land and live in a stunning location that the Welsh locals could not dream of affording.........is that fair?

when it comes to tax of any sort......i would rather have something taxable than nothing to tax!

nemo183

gizmoleeds wrote:

That's an interesting figure you use there because I came across that statistic (of £8 billion) a couple of days ago too, in a BBC news article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5366914.stm

The article also explains that:
Which, with my understanding of how carousel fraud works, sounds like a very promising move to combat and hopefully eliminate this fraud.

The figure of £8 billion refers just to the current tax year. My figure of £30 billion is probably an underestimate of the total loss in the last ten years. If you actually look at the measures that are proposed to stop the fraud, they merely will alter the basic principle.

Just as an aside, you might want to consider the very basis that Richard Branson built his empire on. Virgin Music was started amid a sophisticated purchase-tax fraud that Branson admitted in 1971. :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1664999,00.html

If you just spend a few minutes on Google, you'll see that in essence this is the very same fraud that has now become a virtual £10 billion a year business.

The problem: We have neither the quantity or calibre of staff needed to stop it - we didn't in 1971, and we don't in 2006. Trust me.

margaretclare

Hi nemo183

I hadn't seen the Guardian article you quote - not a Guardian reader! - but I read it and was fascinated and amazed. I didn't realise - I don't suppose many people did - how shakily the 'Branson Empire' rests. 'A house built on sand' you could call it, as someone once said many centuries ago.

I've always thought the 'Lotto' idea was immoral, now I know it is. If I go to my local newsagents today I'll see people lining up to put their hopes and dreams into a pound or two on their weekly Lotto tickets. Many people regard it as their only hope of a better life - people on basic pensions, people on benefits, on low incomes of all kinds - their weekly hope. I would guess that the well-to-do don't bother much with Lotto, if at all. It's the hopes and dreams of the poor - and it's a 'cash cow' for Branson. Disgusting.

Margaret

Tiggs_2

margaretclare wrote:

I would guess that the well-to-do don't bother much with Lotto, if at all.

Margaret

no one with half a brain does the lotto.

margaretclare

Tiggs wrote:

no one with half a brain does the lotto.

Well, I certainly don't. But I see a lot of people round about who do! Look at the phrase which has crept into the language 'I'll do so-and-so if I win the lottery' - it used to be 'if I win the pools'.

The newsagent stays open on Saturday up to 7 pm and people rush in and buy their last-minute tickets....

Margaret

EdInvestor

elliebean wrote:

Because each person has their own IHT-free allowance of currently £285k, that is wasted with a couple if they leave everything to their spouse. Hence the idea of owning property as tenants in common and leaving the value of the nil rate band (£285k) to a trust.

This division of assets between couples is also the way to go to reduce the effects of the "house taken to pay care home costs" problem.

I do sometimes wonder if the reason people moan a lot but do little about IHT may have something to do with recalcitract chaps of the old school who can't quite bring themselves to sign hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of assets over to their wives.

But no doubt I'm wrong.

ReportInvestor

Maybe they know that would give their wives the freedom to divorce them .

But even those "old school types" can help by assigning £285K to their children in their wills and the rest (tax free) to their wives.

home_alone

The first part of my IHT plan goes into force in the next few weeks as I give my son the money he needs to upgrade his property, the daughter will get the same early next year, Both my wife and I plan to live more than 7 years and I do so hate to give my (our) hard earned money to anyone that includes G brown or IHT consultants sorry Tiggs.

To Margaret - I hope to win the lottery the lottery of life we all got tickets on day 1.

gary

Tiggs_2

home_alone wrote:

Both my wife and I plan to live more than 7 years and I do so hate to give my (our) hard earned money to anyone that includes G brown or IHT consultants sorry Tiggs.

Dont appologise! If you can solve your IHT issues with a couple of gifts and an assumption on living 7 years then your situation doesnt really sound like it needs an IHT consulatnt. Nothing wrong with doing it yourself in that instance.

nemo183

Tiggs wrote:

no one with half a brain does the lotto.

Whilst I completely agree that it is a tax on stupidity, there is one reason for buying a ticket which I suggest is probably the real reason most people do.

If you find yourself at the bottom of the economic heap, with no realistic chance, for whatever reason, of climbing upwards, then if you buy a ticket you stand a chance, no matter how tiny, of turning your life around.

If you don't buy a ticket, then you stand no chance.