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

how so? yes, the current government probably so, but a future government, maybe.....

I think there should be consistency with the same rules applying to all, regardless of whether they are living in the house, not living in the house or inheriting a farm or business. I would think the amount you should be able to inherit tax free should be higher than 335k as well.

Well it's lucky that you don't get to make the rules or the country would be fu$ked. Many small family businesses would be long gone out of business.

Ironically, if your "rules" came into play, such assets as farmland would decrease in nominal value in any case and the tax take would be minimal. In return for decimating an important contributor to both GDP (and food security too of course). The fact is that farmland will not pay for itself in terms of return from working it or leasing it out. So such a scheme is fantasy.

The reason for the 100% relief for people living in the house is to prevent cases where a person has to leave their home. I agree with that exception. That is not the same scenario as the child with dollar signs in their eyes visiting their elderly parents once a month for any promising signs that they might be getting frail or ill.

It depends on which measure you are using. Your pick was GINI, which is mostly influenced by income:

Tha Palma ratio is what the UN Human Development Index uses and which the Guardian says is more in favour as a measure, that being the case... Australia rated 0.951 and Ireland rated 0.945.

So given I said social equity not income equity, I'll stand by what I said. Pretty hard to argue with the 2.5 year average life expectancy gap also.

But we already have that. A few years ago the top 1% paid 21% of income tax receipts.

You ignore, or are not aware, of the fact the people inheriting such assets (business or farmland) traditionally have often "earned" it already. Many would have forgone their own career to stay at home to help their family business, often at well below market wages.It would be nonsensical to destroy a small business for a small amount of money. Many of the businesses would close in advance anyway as there would be no point in a child staying at home to help out if they know that when the parent passes that the business would have to be liquidated. In most cases anyway, what is passed on is kept and further passed on later. The value of it is not really relevant to the beneficiary on a day-to-day basis

There are also additional conditions. For business relief, the main stumbling block would be the working requirement. For Ag relief, the main stumbling block would be the asset test. For either, the relief is clawed back unless the beneficiary keeps the inheritance for at least 6 years.

If the house is indeed the "family house" then the child who is living in it can inherit it 100% free of inheritance tax. Whether it be worth 100k or 100 million.

And as pointed out previously, you are free to put your money into farmland or a business should you so wish. Some people do indeed do that as a form of tax planning.

Inheritance tax means that valuable assets cannot just be sat on in return for rent indefinitely. That promotes economic activity in the same way that reasonable inflation does.

If your parents were wealthy and leave you and each of your siblings 10m, well a portion of that will be clawed back. If you want to pass 10m on to your kids then you will have to work a bit too! So you will have to do something productive with your remaining 7m.

not really, hundreds of millions of extra euro just announced, to be given to fuel allowance etc. Robbing from the poor to give to the number one priority, the non workers. Robbing from the working poor to give to the idle comfortable...

Then they can potentially only have to pay about 3% of the value they inherit over 3.35m

It's not inconsistent. A farm is a business. Same as any other business. It is not a windfall to inherit it if you are working it. It is merely something that provides you a below average income for above-average effort. It might be a windfall to inherit it if you work off-farm, but then you likely won't qualify for ag relief anyway.

Your parents house, sitting in some housing estate somewhere which maybe has jumped massively in value due to State investment in infrastructure in the area, is not a business nor does it contribute to GDP. It will likely be something you just cash in and sell, or else move into and sell your own house. It is not the source of your, or anyone else's, income. Nor have you contributed to keeping it maintained and running with your own effort over the past 20 years. You were, instead, off working and living your own life. Their house is nothing to do with you.

If you have two families, each with one kid. One kid is Paddy and one in Mary. Paddy fecks off when he is 23 and goes to the city and gets a job. Buys a house and has a good living. Starts to visit his parents once a month when they get old. When they get frail he packs them off to the nursing home. Mary stays at home to help her parents out. She looks after them as they get older. She works in the local shop so that she can stay close to them and she continues to live with them. When her parents pass away she will rightfully get the house 100% tax free. It is her house. When Paddy's parents pass away he will rightfully be taxed on his windfall.

I mean you aren't going to get much sympathy on here whinging about having a pay a bit or tax while at the same time saying that someone who forgoes a career to help their parents won't earn anything towards inheriting the family farm. Your condescension is fairly nauseating. The inheritance tax saving on the average farm would be less than 180k if you qualify for Ag relief. How many years of your career would you be willing to forgo for that?

Why do you think they decided that it might not be a good idea to have a forced selling of 33% of a farm after it is inherited.................................

As you have indicated yourself, you have the ability to buy either farmland or a business and create the conditions to bequeath your wealth to whomever you want. So you have absolutely no justification for whinging.

You will also have the money to give your children any advantage when starting off. You should have a bit of confidence in them that they will be able to do well for themselves and not sponge off your effort forever.

Whereas you want someone who has done nothing for anyone and scrounged off the state to get their hands on this persons family wealth?

Gotcha.

Perhaps spend more time trying to build some wealth to pass on rather than grab at others?

I was asked what should a person do in the situation as described by Princess. I suggested that they seek legal advice as what they appeared to want to do (take ownership of the property, benefit from ownership of the property, and refuse to pay CAT on the value of the property), is not possible under Irish law.

I did acknowledge that it was the obvious answer to a hypothetical question about what anyone should do in those circumstances. If there is a tax liability, they’re obligated to pay it, seems simple enough.

Pointless hypothetical questions on the other hand…

All the while missing that the crux of there argument is that there shouldnt be a tax liability