No country for young men — UK generation gap widens

stator

westernpromise wrote: »

Whether it is or it isn't, there is no reason why it should be possible in some parts of the country but denied to others.

If you are in Macclesfield you can inherit the house you grew up, in you're in Marylebone you can't.

The simplest fix would be to remove the main residence from IHT.

The simplest solution is to have no exemption from inheritence tax at all. Everyone pays it on 100% of the inheritence. Simple and fair.

What percentage of people who inherit a house from a parent do you think actually live on it, and what percentage do you think just sell it and pocket the cash?

westernpromise

stator wrote: »

The simplest solution is to have no exemption from inheritence tax at all. Everyone pays it on 100% of the inheritence. Simple and fair.

What percentage of people who inherit a house from a parent do you think actually live on it, and what percentage do you think just sell it and pocket the cash?

Why is it fair?

How is the state's claim on my family home more deserving than my children's?

westernpromise

pollypenny wrote: »

I don't feel smug about being 'a quarter millionaire' as if I wanted to move, I'd have to pay the same for a house.

That's unless I down-sized and/or moved to a rough area.

It's all relative.

Correct. That 'profit' is just inflation. It's a penalty, not a benefit.

CLAPTON

stator wrote: »

The simplest solution is to have no exemption from inheritence tax at all. Everyone pays it on 100% of the inheritence. Simple and fair.

What percentage of people who inherit a house from a parent do you think actually live on it, and what percentage do you think just sell it and pocket the cash?

One of the certainties of life, is that the loony left have no ability to work out the unintended consequences of their mad policies.

why don't you try to work out what they might be ?

stator

westernpromise wrote: »

Why is it fair?

How is the state's claim on my family home more deserving than my children's?

Fairness means treating everyone equally. Sharing your estate with just your children is not treating everyone equally. If the state takes your estate then it is essentially shared by everyone in the country and so completely fair.

If your children are poor they will qualify for benefits paid for by the state, that is fair and equal.
If your children inherit money from their parents, that's not fair and equal because many people's children don't inherit money.

Loughton_Monkey

stator wrote: »

Fairness means treating everyone equally.

OK. Got that. I steal a Mars bar from Tesco. You murder the Archbishop of Canterbury. So if we are to be treated equally, then will we both get 'Life'? Or maybe we both get a £100 fine? Please advise which.

stator wrote: »

Sharing your estate with just your children is not treating everyone equally. If the state takes your estate then it is essentially shared by everyone in the country and so completely fair.

If your children are poor they will qualify for benefits paid for by the state, that is fair and equal.

This is getting confusing! Surely the value of my estate is exactly equal to the total amount of lifetime earnings and income from all sources, less my lifetime spending. Some of my spending was giving pocket money to the children (all equal amounts. Just to be 'fair'!) was that unfair? Or should I have left it in my estate so that everyone (not just my children) got the money?

Assuming you'll jump up and down accusing me of being pedantic, tell me when it ceases to be pedantic. Is giving pocket money OK? Or does the problem start when I spend £27,000 on my son's tuition fees [which would otherwise have formed part of my estate, plus interest]? By your definition, presumably it's unfair?

Or does it start to be unfair when I shove £200K in cash into the bank accounts of all my children, when I have been diagnosed with cancer?

So when I pop my clogs, my £1 million house must go to the government you say! That's 'fair' you say. But imagine that one of my children [plus his wife and two kids] live with me, because they don't earn a lot and have never afforded to buy. With the house going straight to the public purse, it's 'fair' to kick the whole penniless family onto the streets? After all, I'm sure they will qualify for virtually all the benefits I helped to fund by my death. This is particularly ironic since they have been paying me a decent rent. I didn't spend any, of course, so that I could throw it back at them if they met hard times. Shame, really, since this, too, goes straight down the government plughole.

stator wrote: »

If your children inherit money from their parents, that's not fair and equal because many people's children don't inherit money.

Using this logic, it is clear that under your regime, it would be a sin to pay my childrens' tuition fees, or pay for their weddings, since many people's children don't get this financial help?

What if one of my sons works hard, earns £50K, claims no benefits, and pays a lot of tax. My other son is an idle 'sob' and claims £15K a year in benefits and tax credits. Wouldn't my first son have a right to the same benefits because everything needs to be 'fair and equal'.

What, I think you need, is pure unadulterated communism.

stator

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

OK. Got that. I steal a Mars bar from Tesco. You murder the Archbishop of Canterbury. So if we are to be treated equally, then will we both get 'Life'? Or maybe we both get a £100 fine? Please advise which.

Silly billy, if you commit the same crime in the same circumstances then treating people fairly would mean the same sentance. It doesn't mean always doing the same thing to different people regardless of the circumstances.

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

This is getting confusing! Surely the value of my estate is exactly equal to the total amount of lifetime earnings and income from all sources, less my lifetime spending. Some of my spending was giving pocket money to the children (all equal amounts. Just to be 'fair'!) was that unfair? Or should I have left it in my estate so that everyone (not just my children) got the money?

Giving money to just your own children is yes technically unfair, but I'm not proposing doing anything about it and I don't think I have suggested that either.

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Assuming you'll jump up and down accusing me of being pedantic, tell me when it ceases to be pedantic. Is giving pocket money OK? Or does the problem start when I spend £27,000 on my son's tuition fees [which would otherwise have formed part of my estate, plus interest]? By your definition, presumably it's unfair?

Or does it start to be unfair when I shove £200K in cash into the bank accounts of all my children, when I have been diagnosed with cancer?

Sure, it's all unfair. Many things are unfair. We can't control everything. But when creating government policy, fairness should be the goal.

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

So when I pop my clogs, my £1 million house must go to the government you say! That's 'fair' you say. But imagine that one of my children [plus his wife and two kids] live with me, because they don't earn a lot and have never afforded to buy. With the house going straight to the public purse, it's 'fair' to kick the whole penniless family onto the streets? After all, I'm sure they will qualify for virtually all the benefits I helped to fund by my death. This is particularly ironic since they have been paying me a decent rent. I didn't spend any, of course, so that I could throw it back at them if they met hard times. Shame, really, since this, too, goes straight down the government plughole.

Using this logic, it is clear that under your regime, it would be a sin to pay my childrens' tuition fees, or pay for their weddings, since many people's children don't get this financial help?

I'll leave 'sin' and religion up to other people. But when a parent gives more than £1000 per year to a child yes I would tax it as inheritence. The £1000 limit is arbitary by the way, just to save paperwork, not anything to do with fairness.

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

What if one of my sons works hard, earns £50K, claims no benefits, and pays a lot of tax. My other son is an idle 'sob' and claims £15K a year in benefits and tax credits. Wouldn't my first son have a right to the same benefits because everything needs to be 'fair and equal'.

Everyone can claim benefits and they are judged on their circumstances, that's fair. It doesn't require that everyone be granted the same benefits unless their circumstances are the same.

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

What, I think you need, is pure unadulterated communism.

Communism would be nice, it's a good idea, but unfortunately it doesn't work. There are too many humans with the selfish gene for that type of society to work. Socialism is quite good though.:beer:

posh*spice

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Buy a house on one salary

How is this a good thing?

Boomer women were treated like crap. No career. No mortgage. No bank account. Even joint bank accounts didn't exist.

Men who wouldn't lift a finger in the house. No man (or boy) would shop, cook, not so much as lay a table or clear away a plate. Change a nappy - when hell freezes over. Push a pram! Never. No hint of childcare was ever done by a man. They wouldn't even make themselves a cup of tea! "Make us a cup of tea love". That was how a man got a cup of tea, whether it was his wife or secretary.

No washing machines. No Fridge. No freezer. Boomers drank milk when "it was on the turn". Rancid butter and bad eggs were a part of normal life. And meals cooked from scratch. Rationing. Meat and fish were scarce.

Women couldn't go anywhere - lone women weren't allowed into restaurants or hotels. Women who went into pubs were "fast".

Girls weren't considered worthy of education because they were going to grow up and be housewives. Early marriage to your first boyfriend.

Domestic violence.

Divorced women were shunned.

Women weren't people in their own right.

Boomers had it great.

bugslet

posh*spice wrote: »

How is this a good thing?

Boomer women were treated like crap. No career. No mortgage. No bank account. Even joint bank accounts didn't exist.

I think that highlights one of the flaws in the Boomer label. It seems to cover a huge spread of time, in which there were an awful lot of changes.

I just scrape into Boomerdom with 6 months to spare and I didn't really experience much in the way of sexism despite being in male dominated industry, had a mortgage, career....well I made my own. However, a friend who is only 5 years old, married, went to get some furniture and was told that she would have to get her husband to sign the credit application, despite the fact that she earned a good wage as the manager of a care home. By the 80s, the social landscape had started changing incredibly quickly.

As for people not inheriting ( I inherited very little from my parents ), if people have worked hard, then leave what the heck you like to whomever you like. Life isn't fair or equal.

seven-day-weekend

ukcarper wrote: »

You can still a 90% mortgage so £24k deposited less average wage. If you want to buy that should be your number one priority and if that means waiting for children and living with parents or in a house share so be it. That is what we did and if we had rented a house and had children first we would still be renting.

This is quite important, isn't it? Many 'boomers' lived with parents until buying a house. We had the house before we had children.

Obviously if you are renting and have a couple of children it is going to take you longer to save than of you did not have those expenses.

I do agree though that house prices in some places are stupidly high, but there are still plenty of places where you can get a family house for a decent price.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E162&minPrice=70000&maxPrice=150000&minBedrooms=2&radius=3.0&googleAnalyticsChannel=buying

We have just bought a two-bedroom bungalow with a big garden in a nice area for £138,000.