MSE News: Probate fees set to skyrocket from next month

Yorkshireman99

Malthusian wrote: »

How is it "hidden"? It's been prominently covered in every single major newspaper and anyone who takes the remotest interest in their own finances and wants to know what happens to their money on death will quickly find out from a professional or from a website like this one. You're not a member of WASPI by any chance?

Anyone who gets upset about being "stung" by it must exist in a perpetual state of outrage when they find that every time they receive a paycheque they get stung by hidden taxes starting at 34% of their income and every time they buy something they get stung by a hidden tax of 20% of its value.

I really struggle to sympthaise with someone who leaves hundreds of thousands of pounds and doesn't take two minutes to find out how the system works.

I would add that there are various measures by which many ndividuals can reduce the size of their estates to minimise IHT and also future probate fees.

Doc_N

Malthusian wrote: »

How is it "hidden"?

How is it hidden? Please! How can you possibly describe something as a probate fee (currently a flat-rate £155 or £215) when it has nothing whatever to do with the cost of the 'service' and increases to between £300 and £20,000.

If you want to increase IHT, call it that - don't just dress it up as a 'fee'.

Still, why should anyone expect anything other than dishonesty and deceit from the Conservatives?

Yorkshireman99

Doc_N wrote: »

How is it hidden? Please! How can you possibly describe something as a probate fee (currently a flat-rate £155 or £215) when it has nothing whatever to do with the cost of the 'service' and increases to between £300 and £20,000.

If you want to increase IHT, call it that - don't just dress it up as a 'fee'.

Still, why should anyone expect anything other than dishonesty and deceit from the Conservatives?

Given the publicity how can anyone say that there has been any deceit or dishonesty about the fees? There was also a consultation period when anyone could comment. Did you do so?

Doc_N

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

Given the publicity how can anyone say that there has been any deceit or dishonesty about the fees? There was also a consultation period when anyone could comment. Did you do so?

The deceit is in the word 'fee'. It isn't a fee - it's a straight tax. I have no problem with the concept, or the consultation period - just the deceitful dressing up of a new tax as a probate fee.

Yorkshireman99

Doc_N wrote: »

The deceit is in the word 'fee'. It isn't a fee - it's a straight tax. I have no problem with the concept, or the consultation period - just the deceitful dressing up of a new tax as a probate fee.

Pure semantics. There is is nothing deceitful at all. The costs of the Probate Service have to be funded somehow. In percentage terms the fees that have increased represent a fraction of a percent and a large percentage of estates are exempt. The reality is that whatever you call it the costs, by and large, fall on the estates that can easily afford it. At the same time many estates that would have found the fees hard bear will be exempt. The complaints seem to be politically motivated without any genuine basis.

Crabapple

The costs of the probate service itself are not being funded from these new fees though, they are being used to subsidise the courts service more generally.

This is one issue raised by the committee, and the responses to the consultation.

Issue of a grant of probate is largely an admin task and these fees are totally disproportionate to the work involved.

Malthusian

For God's sake nobody tell Doc N that there's a tax called National Insurance which doesn't actually buy you insurance. Or that there's a Value Added Tax which doesn't add any value. And it's a good thing we don't still have Super Tax.

Still, why should anyone expect anything other than dishonesty and deceit from the Conservatives?

I hadn't realised this was some tribal rubbish, please say so next time. Were you as outraged when probate fees were introduced in their current form under a Labour Government in 2004? It had nothing to do with the cost of the service then either, and it was still waived for very small estates (under £5,000 or where it would cause undue financial hardship).

Yorkshireman99

Crabapple wrote: »

The costs of the probate service itself are not being funded from these new fees though, they are being used to subsidise the courts service more generally.

This is one issue raised by the committee, and the responses to the consultation.

Issue of a grant of probate is largely an admin task and these fees are totally disproportionate to the work involved.

Really? What about all the overheads of running the Probate service and the Chancery division of the Court? Why should it fall on the taxpayer rather than the user of the service?

Doc_N

From the Telegraph (hardly a left of centre paper!).

Get used to stealth taxes – they’re now the Tories’ favourite weapon

This is, in effect, a new death tax – an ingenious idea but one that is, unfortunately, illegal. The Justice Secretary has no authority to raise taxes. Only the Chancellor can, and even he needs the approval of Parliament. Ms Truss had sought to disguise her scheme as a “fee” rather than a tax and she might have succeeded had a parliamentary committee not blown the whistle on her. She may try to go ahead anyway, and run the risk of a judicial review. But for the Justice Secretary to be hauled up for illegal racketeering is not the best look.

Yorkshireman99

Doc_N wrote: »

From the Telegraph (hardly a left of centre paper!).

Get used to stealth taxes – they’re now the Tories’ favourite weapon

This is, in effect, a new death tax – an ingenious idea but one that is, unfortunately, illegal. The Justice Secretary has no authority to raise taxes. Only the Chancellor can, and even he needs the approval of Parliament. Ms Truss had sought to disguise her scheme as a “fee” rather than a tax and she might have succeeded had a parliamentary committee not blown the whistle on her. She may try to go ahead anyway, and run the risk of a judicial review. But for the Justice Secretary to be hauled up for illegal racketeering is not the best look.

Pure unadulterated BS. I am amazed that the Telegrapgh printed it. More typical of the Grauniad.