House proceeds going to pay nursing home bills?

silverharp

Does anyone think that working and middle class people being sucked into paying inheritance tax and potentially this new tax on old people staying in nursing homes is boardering on communism (with a small c). It appears that the average joe will never in fact own his own property outright, once he has paid the bank back there will always be a latent tax on the house when it gets passed on. In a small way I see this as an erosion on property rights. Where will it stop. Is there a long term problem here that gov. are making promises they can never hope to keep and will start sequestering your assets in various guises. Whats to stop the Gov for instance forcing your pension fund to invest in gov debt if things got really bad.

mike65

Eh? Is 15% max and its after you die, which beats the current system hands down.

Mike.

gandalf

On first looks it is an improvement on the current system, but as they say the devil is in the detail

constitutionus

waits patiently for someone to ask what happens if the relative, after getting the service, signs the house over to child just before they die. someone actually asked harney this and she had no answer, saying words to the effect they wouldnt forsee that happening . when you consider the main reason the people who got butchered by dr neary cant sue him in a civil case is because he transfered all his assets to his family it seems to me the gov could be well and truely snookered. for those that dont know if your a co owner on the deeds it doesnt go in as part of the deceased's estate, even by passing probate, becoming the sole property of the remaining named owner.


personally i think the whole idea is sick. most of these people paid 60% tax for most of their lives when even the bloody politicians didnt. laying the groundwork for the country we get to enjoy now and this is the reward they get?

heres a hint mary, if you need money to pay for this how about actually taxing the top 2% of the country thats on over 100k a year, including the 30 thousand millionaires in the country, 41% ****ing tax on their earnings just like everyone else in the country earning 34k or more.
seeing as those people are earning so much money theyre artificially raising the average industrial wage by about 10k it should more than cover it !

I think everyone should pay their own way as much as possible. Consider someone living at everyone’s expense, but who has a large asset that cannot be accessed until their death. Once that person dies, I think everyone else should be entitled to recover their expenses from that asset. Only then should the residual be distributed as the deceased would have wanted. If someone dies owing you €50,000 and you found he had €100,000 in cash on him at the time of his death, would you not feel you should get your €50,000 back before his family gets their inheritance?

Reverse mortgages (http://www.economist.com/debate/freeexchange/2006/11/home_equity_to_solve_japans_pe.cfm) seem to offer a better solution to this problem. They allow the unaccessible asset to become accessible prior to the person’s death. Thus the individual can pay their own way. The expansion of state power where it can be avoided is regrettable, in this case it can be limited to a regulatory role, once financial markets have developed enough for reverse mortgages to exist.

Victor

silverharp wrote:

In a small way I see this as an erosion on property rights.

I'd love to see how a dead person has property rights.

Also note that the constitution says property rights are subject to the common good. I think its in the common good that granny gets some care in her last days rather than being incontinent in a 4-bed house while young families are struggling for housing.

If the property is transferred before death, then at least there are people living in the property (hopefully) rather than nobody, seeing as granny is living in a nursing home. Maximising use of existing assets ina tight situation is a good thing.

Of course, with the Revenue Commissioners, you can't gift your assets to someone to avoid tax debts. The Revenue can follow the asset, regardless of beneficial ownership or not.

constitutionus

Victor wrote:

Of course, with the Revenue Commissioners, you can't gift your assets to someone to avoid tax debts. The Revenue can follow the asset, regardless of beneficial ownership or not.

ah but the deal with harney isnt a tax, its a contract. all the revenue would be entitled to with the transfer would be stamp duty, i know this cause ive done it recently and if your transfering to a sibling or offspring you even get a discount of roughly 50% . and when the gov comes looking for their cash all they'll find is the house isnt part of the deceased estate under property law so they wont get anything. remember "your ma said she'd give us 15% of the gaff" means nothing next to "sole name on the deeds" , fact is these guys havent thought this through properly, the shouldve let FF draft the leglislation. they think in these sneaky ways

plus one other thing, what happens if we have a property crash? theres nothing to say these propertys will retain their value 40yrs from now

Boston

Victor wrote:

I'd love to see how a dead person has property rights.

Also note that the constitution says property rights are subject to the common good. I think its in the common good that granny gets some care in her last days rather than being incontinent in a 4-bed house while young families are struggling for housing

It's people's right to decide for themselves where they want to die.

I want to die in a mansion, on top of a mountain of money, surrounded by a legion of prostitutes and midget butlers.

constitutionus

Deleted User wrote:

I want to die in a mansion, on top of a mountain of money, surrounded by a legion of prostitutes and midget butlers.

C J , is that you?

jd

Deleted User wrote:

and midget butlers.

with silver plates adorned with lines of coke balanced on their heads.

I think it is reasonable enough, people can be asset rich and cash poor

NewDubliner

mike65 wrote:

Eh? Is 15% max and its after you die, which beats the current system hands down. Mike.

The government will save some money by not having to pay the subvention and by not having to give income tax relief for the payments.

democrates

Eddie Hobbs in the SBP today accused detractors of double-thinking, in wanting scandinavian health-care at Irish tax rates.

But Consitutionus made a good point, todays elderly were paying 60p in the pound for years, that was the social contract they signed up to and now the govt are welching on the deal. If there were no other choice but this scheme it should be deferred for 15 years or so.

This system makes no effort to achieve equity, even when the low tax generation come to old age there will be winners and losers.

The 15% after 3 years is problematic. Say for arguments sake the average healthcare bill for home-care, nursing home, hospital, and hospice comes to 100,000.

If that's 15% then the equal choice house price is 666,666. If your house is worth more you may as well pay the healthcare yourself, if less then let them have the 15% of the house. Ludicrous.

Also consider that some people bought corporation houses for a pittance from the state through giveaway deals while others paid market rates through the nose. What is the effect on motivation to make an effort and do the right thing vs the hoards of 'entitled to' born with a hand out looking for something for nothing and slacking off having a clatter of sprogs to move up the housing list.

I take what silverharp said about the communistic stench of this, but I would add that it seems to be calculated to claw back more of the steath-taxes-laden hard working paye battery hens gains from their lifes work so they can be redistributed to welfare freeloaders on the one hand who are paid and housed for doing nowt, and on the other hand to the wealthy via all those tax-breaks eg seed-capital scheme, low corporation tax, r&d grants, self-directed pensions, section 23 property etc etc. F*cking harpies after the one good thing we got.

If we reformed taxation and welfare the need for this apalling measure would be drastically reduced and our equitable contributions would go much farther.

MrPudding

constitutionus wrote:

waits patiently for someone to ask what happens if the relative, after getting the service, signs the house over to child just before they die.

They have this in the UK. My mother is slightly concerned as, due to family history, she will most likely end up in a home.

In the UK the whole thing is handled by the local councils. When we looked into it we found that there is no easy way round it. We looked at transfering the house to my name now but found that the council would still have the right to tale the house off me at some point in the future if they felt / could prove that the transfer happen to avoid them selling the house to pay for care.

Given the family history it is most likely they would be successful. Given the money grabbing nature of the irish government I would be surprised if they did not have a similar clause, should this go ahead.

MrP

silverharp

What annoys me about this is the changing the rules when it's too late for the people behind to plan for this. and my question still stands what next? Everyone knows there is going to be a pension crises in the nest 20 years or so, alot of the social contracts we have are scams based on Pyramid scheme logic. if everybody politely departed the earth a couple of years after ceasing work then everything would be fine. However gov. is in the business of making proimses that they can never hope to keep. My big fear is paying into pensions etc that will be robbed in some fashion before I get to collect.

constitutionus

silverharp wrote:

What annoys me about this is the changing the rules when it's too late for the people behind to plan for this. and my question still stands what next? Everyone knows there is going to be a pension crises in the nest 20 years or so, alot of the social contracts we have are scams based on Pyramid scheme logic. if everybody politely departed the earth a couple of years after ceasing work then everything would be fine. However gov. is in the business of making proimses that they can never hope to keep. My big fear is paying into pensions etc that will be robbed in some fashion before I get to collect.

ill be honest thats one of the main reasons i dont have ,nor have any intention of getting, a pension.

in the end bar the civil service no one has a guarantee that their pension will be worth a damn when they retire and i dont earn enough to take the risk. as it stands my mother earns 100 euro a week more than me as a pensioner than i do as a PAYE worker( ok thats my fault cause ive made quality of life choices but its still the truth and im still earning more than the minimum wage !). personally im taking steps now to ensure i have an income in the future but its more based on a business venture than a pension cause at the end of the day pensions are just a fancier version of gambling with sod all power in the clients hands. so that combined with my state pension that ive been paying into for the last 14yrs should stand me well . (always annoys me when ministers go "what you've no pension!" as if PRSI is a ****ing myth. the fact is if you earn less than 25k a year no private pension will give you more than the state one. particularly if your talking about putting 25% of your wages into it )

mike65

Pensions are the hot spud for the next 30-40 years, no question. It used to be great (for the state) work till 66 die at 68-70 you've been quite cheap to run thankyou! Now you insist on living to 80 and whatsmore demand to do so in luxury (historically speaking). Meanwhile most of us hav'nt actually been saving for that lifestyle as we presume 'something will turn up'

The real pensions for many will be thier homes I can see a huge amount of trading down and an explosion of granny flat/retirement village development coming. Best thing to do I reckon is keep working (and saving/investing).

Mike.

leninbenjamin

yeah. the fact is we're b****cksed when it comes to pensions. Traditional pay as go schemes that practically every European has in place won't be sustainable. As current trends go we could be looking at one dependent for every 2 workers in the country!!! now that's going to be a huge strain on the tax system. the only solution I can really see would be to open up our borders to immigrants, but that comes along with other strains like extra crime, integration problems, strain on the education system, loss of culture etc... In some ways that's why i can see some justification for this measure the Govt are bringing in, as dastardly as it seems. Still it does kind of defeat the purpose of paying a mortgage for 20+ odd years, and it smacks of desperation from the government.

constitutionus wrote:

the fact is if you earn less than 25k a year no private pension will give you more than the state one. particularly if your talking about putting 25% of your wages into it )

don't count on it being that way in 30+ years though. people are really going to have to get creative when it comes to securing their future after all the schenanigans...