Why inheritance is the dirty secret of the middle classes – harder to talk about than sex

A lazy dumb comparison that ignores all the disproportion of local property markets.

10,000 shares are 10,000 shares, here or on the moon. Children inheriting a 2,000 sq ft house in Leitrim will pay zero inheritance tax. Same house in parts of Dublin, probably 200,000k in tax. On a house already paying higher stamp duty, mortgage interest, LPT and whatever else for its whole life.

Should be able to inherit it tax free because tax was paid on the building of it. Tax was paid on everything purchased to furnish it, clean it, heat it, property tax itself..tax paid on the insuring of it…

why should an asset that’s being given to a person by family member be taxed in addition…? It shouldn’t…..but even more burdens shall be added to the Irish taxpayers as a means of funding every bit of cash going towards fixing every problem for everyone else in the world.

If it’s sold at a later date, or when rather…. A shed load more tax gets paid.

Not even close to the same premise. A disingenuous statement :)

I mean it feels too obvious to say but is that not an incredibly lazy, dumb comparison?

They'll pay tax on the Dublin house because of the horror of being handed something far more valuable that the people in Leitrim. These kids in Dublin are still winning the lotto and getting the vast majority of an expensive asset at zero cost to them.

This is one that always blows my mind when it's discussed, everyone loses all sense of reason. Intergenerational wealth is a pox on society and has been for all of recorded history, our tax rate is amazingly low on it all things considered.

You most ceryainly are: your position is that people who inherit should pay large sums of cash to the State, is it not?

And if the inheritance is in the form of an asset they can not sell, where does the cash come from?

money from paid work vs inherited.. two different things..can be seen as such.

No, of course they don't but you get some suggesting IT should be 100%, look at the comments on the guardian article. I love the guardian for the different perspective (and also the odd laugh). Here is another one, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/17/i-havent-borrowed-money-from-my-mother-since-1994-but-if-the-banks-wont-lend-me-any-

Borrowing money for a house off your parents in your 50's. It certainly isn't my world as I grew up in an average working class family.

A gift is a gift

Who are you to judge if my very good friend the mercedes dealer gifts me a 100k merc for Christmas? And I happen to gift him 100k in cash. That will be a gift to him, not income. No tax for him either.

Great plan

Why 1 or 2 million? Why such arbitrary figures? What about the difference between inheriting a house in Dublin vs Leitrim and the associated costs?

I think you are using the tiniest example of "bad" intergenerational wealth to make everyone suffer.

In any case, depending on the number of kids, 0% would go to the state anyway, so the wealth stays within the same family. Yet if there was 1 kid they get screwed.

I dont have an issue, the point was that why should some people get money (and housing) from the state yet others end up paying for a gift.

"tax for the wealthy" again with the presumption that someone getting an inheritance is somehow wealthy.

and yeah, I know how maths works thanks!

Farmland would just be sold on to other local farmers if the children were unable to pay the tax. The state could become a passive part owner in a small business until they could be bought out later?

Its not about punishing the children. Its about fixing the economy

The fact that a house in Dublin is unaffordable is because of wealth inequality

Ireland's wealth is distributed more unequally than gross income

This means that over time, prices will become more and more unaffordable to most working people, and assets will be accumulated, more and more by the people who have the most wealth.

For a functioning economy, we need to reward work, and we need workers to be able to afford to pay for the things they need to survive, including housing

By not taxing wealth we end up that wealth concentrating into a small group of elites, with asset prices increasing beyond the grasp of working people.

Ireland isn't the worst place for this, the UK and US are much much worse than Ireland, but we can already see the housing crisis where houses are unaffordable, and then rents go up.

Life is much much easier for the wealthy who can use all kinds of schemes intended to allow them to keep as much of their wealth while avoiding tax.

Currently a child can inherit 335k tax free from their parents and pay 33% tax on anything above that.

Wealthy families have already created trust funds, tax free for their children of 6k per year so by the time their children are 18, they'll already have 108k in the bank, and they can continue to receive these 6k a year payments for as long as both parents are alive without affecting their inheritance at all.

If you didn't have a trust fund worth north of 100k by the time you're old enough to drink (adjusted for inflation), then you're not in the same category as the people I think need to be targeted with wealth taxes.

Inheritance tax indirectly gives corporations more power over ordinary people - inheritance tax stops families from accumulating wealth over generations, whereas corporations can continue to grow unabated.

Over 100s of years a family may build up their wealth and assets, then lose a big chunk to inheritance, build up again, lost more. Corporate entities can continue to grow with no obstacles in that time. Given enough time corporations would own most assets in the world, as actual people are hit with punitive taxes during the passing of wealth to next generation, need to sell, corporate giants dont have the same penalties and can hoover up more assets.

Wealthy individuals are far more likely to be genuinely altruistic with their money than corporations, because corporate entities must prioritise shareholder profit above all else. They give to charity when it will improve their PR or tax situation, they do not exist to operate altruistically. Tackling the wealthy individual makes a great soundbite, but it isnt wealthy individuals exploiting you, the environment, housing markets. Its the wealthy corp.

And before someone reads this and assumes speaking ill of giant MNCs == communism, communism is for bitter failures jealous of other people's wealth. Ironically a large cross section of same are supporters of inheritance taxes

You're still having difficulty understanding it seems. Try to think about what you would do in both scenarios below

Scenario 1: You have to pay 75k tax

Scenario 2: You have to pay 0 tax