Polly Toynbee on Inheritance Tax
Our 'friend' Polly is getting all fired up about how liberal our inheritance tax laws are, and the article is filled with all our usual politics of envy rhetoric, despite her own considerable wealth. Rather pleasingly, the readers' comments attached do a fair job of filletting her thesis, so I will concentrate on the 7 year rule for potetnially exempt transfers, which she terms a 'loophole': "But the main loophole is the extraordinary rule that you can give away any amount free of tax if you stay alive for seven years thereafter".
A 'loophole' would normally be considered as a flaw - perhaps - in the draughting of legislation. In this case the seven year rule is at the core of the legislation, and calling this a 'loophole' is idiotic. If memory serves, the definition of theft under the '68 Theft act is 'to dishonestly appropriate property belonging to another with the intention to permanently deprive', and PT's argument could be paralleled by describing the 'permanently deprive' clause as a loophole.
Doubtless Fact Checking Pollyanna will dissect the article point by point....
Our 'friend' Polly is getting all fired up about how liberal our inheritance tax laws are, and the article is filled with all our usual politics of envy rhetoric, despite her own considerable wealth. Rather pleasingly, the readers' comments attached do a fair job of filletting her thesis, so I will concentrate on the 7 year rule for potetnially exempt transfers, which she terms a 'loophole': "But the main loophole is the extraordinary rule that you can give away any amount free of tax if you stay alive for seven years thereafter".
A 'loophole' would normally be considered as a flaw - perhaps - in the draughting of legislation. In this case the seven year rule is at the core of the legislation, and calling this a 'loophole' is idiotic. If memory serves, the definition of theft under the '68 Theft act is 'to dishonestly appropriate property belonging to another with the intention to permanently deprive', and PT's argument could be paralleled by describing the 'permanently deprive' clause as a loophole.
Doubtless Fact Checking Pollyanna will dissect the article point by point....
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on Tuesday, July 04, 2006 at 8:17 am.
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polly forever earned my respect when she tried to live on the minimum wage and found out that it was hard!!!!!
she inhabits a different planet to the rest of us.I can't stand the snactimonious lefty nutter
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