I was on Radio 5 this morning discussing inheritance tax with a Conservative commentator who really was a little clueless.
This is a clip we made of our exchange:
I am sure there will be some trolls saying I had a car crash interview, but I felt that one went pretty well.
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Outstanding!
To coin a phrase, you owned him
It is merely a reminder that for a large constituency all taxation is a form of theft. and that will not change. They do not acknowledge dependence on anything; least of all on the fact that whatever they have is dependent wholly on money enabled, owned and made secure by the sovereign power. The problem is, that constituency is the only one to which the Single Transferable Party ever listens; and it isn’t going to change now. Labour is trying hard to prepare the ground for the return of the Conservatives, by making a bad situation even worse, and working hard to ensure everyone knows it.
Fair comment
As if in response to my point about the ‘taxation is theft’ theme; the Daily Telegraph has come up with this headline about Budget tax rises today: “Desperate Rachel Reeves is resorting to stealing”. All you do is buy a media outlet (it needs a lot of money, but there is always someone with a vested interest to protect); say anything, however daft or false, if it serves your patron’s interests – and just keep repeating it, increasing the exaggeration with each repetition. They are crude and obvious, but far more people are far, far more gullible (or corrupt, or corruptible) than the defenders of our democracy wish to believe.
I heard an American journalist explaining Trump’s success by explaining that a lot of Americans are not interested in whether Trump tells the truth or not; they like precisely what shocks critics – however absurd; because they believe Trump is far more likely to shake-up the Washington establishment, and that is far more important to them. I have always felt that at least part of Trumpism is nothing to do with Trump, but pay-off for the post-Crash freedom given by Obama’s Treasury to the Banks to rip-off Main Street, and foreclose on millions of mortgages irresponsibly; Main Street in middle and Rustbelt America wants someone they think will ‘get even’ in Washington for them (whether they are right or not is neither here nor there; it is a matter of whom they think is on their side).
Since the Conservatives imploded under five different PM’s we are going the same way; and in 100 days nobody now trusts Labour.
I rest my case.
Brilliant. “Who did I pay that extra £400,000 to?” Loved it.
What, by the way, is a Conservative commentator? Where did they drag him up from and what had he done to have to show himself up as thick on radio?
I was amused by that as I said it
There is a prodigious output on this website… does Mr Murphy ever rest??
Sometimes
But this is the easy part of my job
There ios a day job as well
I do 60 hours a week right now
“And the stridency is stress related. I don’t think I feel it – but I obviously do”.
If you can hear it, maybe you should listen to it. I exceed the limit of courtesy, but on the other hand, 60 hours and feeling stress you hadn’t noticed …….
I am doing something about those holes, I assure you
It can only benefit us repeating these messages.
I think you started as a contributor and then ended as the presenter. Well done.
Interesting that it focused on housing.
Housing has a dual function – as an asset and a good. The asset function has been a disaster as far as I am concerned and house price inflation has been treated as ‘good inflation’ when in fact we know what it is doing to the generations below us, our own kids. I have never taken the concept of ‘negative equity’ seriously because of the function of housing as a good – somewhere to live for Gods sake.
Having said that, the lack of investment in existing social housing is a big risk, as it lumbers local authorities and housing associations with assets that are declining in value therefore easier to mop up under future under priced privatisations.
Using your abode as a store of wealth is not a sign of success. We should point out tirelessly that this signifies a failure of wages, savings and pensions.
Tip? Watch your voice Richard – it had a stridency in it initially, try to keep the voice more in the mid range as you start that you dropped too when you were asking questions. You can be just as assertive that way. Having said that, I could not do any better, and would be much worse.
I admit, I did rather take over the interviewing role
I think the presenter was quite happy with that though
And the stridency is stress related
I don’t think I feel it – but I obviously do
I’ve done a fair bit of broadcasting in the past and I can affirm that the presenter and more importantly the producer just love a good-going ding-dong of opposing views, especially where one person clearly knows what he/she is talking about and the other is blustering away, clearly out of his/her depth. As long as nobody resorts to fisticuffs or foul language the presenter has an easy ride and the producer gets a programme which will hold the listeners’ attention. I remember a BBC recording decades ago where a musician colleague and I took offence against the author of a book about music in which he dismissed musicians and composers of colour as being “poor quality”. He got a good mauling on air and afterwards my colleague and I apologised to the producer for being so forthright in our criticism. He laughed and said “forget it; it makes for great radio” and he proposed to use it as an example for the training of young producers.
Agreed
That is my experience over many years
I think that you Richard have talked to that conservative commentator the way one should talk to conservative commentators, politicians and all conservatives. When thy talk rubbish you tell them that they talk rubbish.
I have always thought of this as deferred capital gains tax on illiquid assets, such as one’s primary residence, and have absolutely no problem with it.
Well done but he was not worthy of your time imho.
I say there is a case to be made for a close to 100% inheritance tax for everyone. And the spoils should go to the betterment of society through thorough and very high quality education, protection of the environment shared ownership of productive assets etc. I see no reason, why we as society should not educate ourselves and our children for far longer, broader based and more in depth. It goes without saying that the current main stream schooling systems do not serve that function very well and need to be reformed.
Ideally we’d find a way to not pass down through the generations current and inherent injustices while keeping society agile and collaboratively competitive.
As an example for how housing could be tackled, look at the “Fuggerei”, the oldest public housing complex still in use (500 years and counting!). After a generation or two we’d have very different incentive structures throughout society.
The “Fuggerei”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuggerei
Brilliant!
Tom Bradley had not a SINGLE answer to your points.
He kept moving from one soundbite to another – “unfair” – “earned it” “double taxation” – yried briefly to swith to “education” while saying it wasnt about money at all (which must be why private school fees are so low… I started to sing the Yorkshire ditty about “tha can’t ave brass wi’out edication”), and finally Tom ran away to hide in a tax free corner, muttering ideologically about “the big state”.
Murphy 1
Tory commentator 0
Thanks
What? This Tom Bradley?
https://www.northcotswoldconservatives.org.uk/people/tom-bradley
Not exactly a “Conservative commentator”, is he?
In addition, why was our esteemed only host a mere Professor? Fervent Blogger, Influencer, Teacher, Societal Commentator(!), why pick one of Richard’s but none of Tom’s?
Presumably not the ITV news anchor.
This Tom Bradley (same as GT’s)
https://x.com/Tom_S_Bradley
Seems he isn’t keen to draw his followers’ attention to his performance, but he gets other spots on 5Live, so perhaps the same.
Well done Richard. Tom hadn’t a clue! He kept repeating his trope about the ‘double taxation’ despite you and the other commentator telling him that the property being passed on wasn’t taxed previously. I heard him struggle a few times to respond to you, so he knew he was being had by you.
I disagree re inheritance tax. In the past it may have played a role where estates where worth a lot, now with asset inflation that is not the case. If there is to be a tax it should be paid by those who inherit taking into account their own current assets and income.
Oh and there are good reasons for farmers not having to pay – otherwise we will have a situation where farmers will have to pay up either splitting up farms and/or allowing hedge funds and others to buy the land. You do not have to have a large farm these days to look wealthy.
A far better approach re wealth particularly land would be to set firm limits on the amount that can be owned and tax amounts above that.
We will have to disagree, except on the direction of travel. A gifts receipts tax is undoubtedly better.
It would be interesting to see some statistics on how much of the UK’s farming land is owned by “family farms” of the sort that APR is intended to protect. And how much is owned by financial investors – families and trusts looking for tax benefits, and corporate investors looking for financial returns. I expect most farmers these days are tenants or under contract, not owners of the land.
On IHT, I’ll quote the numbers the IFS give here: https://ifs.org.uk/articles/raising-revenue-closing-inheritance-tax-loopholes
About 4% or 5% of estates pay IHT at present. Although that number is forecast to go up due to the fixed threshold and increasing asset prices, it is still very much a minority.
The total raised by IHT each year is about £7 billion. Compared to income tax, NIC, VAT, even corporation tax, let alone the total public spending of over £1,000 billion, it is trivial.
Of the large reliefs, BPR gives away £1.3 billion, and APR gives away about £0.4 billion. The additional nil rate for residences (another £175k on top of the usual £325k) gives away £1.8 billion to people to own one particular sort of asset.
The suggestions in that linked article must be high up the agenda – stop treating AIM shares as “business property” exempt from IHT; stop treating pension pots as exempt from IHT on death below 75; cap APR and BPR, perhaps £0.5m or £1m, perhaps £5m or £10m, but an unlimited exemption cannot be right. (For similar reasons, I’d cap the CGT relief for principal private residences, like they do in the US.)
I was giving evidence to the House of Lords one day when HMRC were asked if they had any data that showed agricultural property relief had and agricultural or economic benefit. They had none, they said. No one had ever tried to prove that, they said.
That was a really good interview
Points made with concision and precision and politeness wish I was 1/10 th as good at it .
Hopefully leads to much much more media presence where people can be influenced
Thanks
I definitely feel some sympathy for the person that realises a gain today and unexpectedly dies tomorrow and ends up paying both IHT and CGT on the same funds. Is it particularly likely to happen? Probably not, but if IHT should be treated as a substitute for CGT then maybe capital gains should be non-taxable in the year of death?
Also whilst there is a point about people who die when they are much older having family members who really probably don’t need the money some people sadly die when they are much younger and they may leave young children behind. IHT on that estate (assuming there is no spouse when it wouldn’t be paid anyway) is really the state taking from orphans. Rather than an increased allowance for owning a house (which has never made sense to me because I don’t see why that type of asset should be given special treatment) perhaps there should instead be an increased allowance for estates on which an orphan is now dependent?
It is easy to focus on the person who dies in their 90’s with children who are themselves retired, and has almost all their money in an expensive house on which they have paid no capital gains taxes, but the small number of instances where that isn’t the case are perhaps deserving of a little more consideration, and given how few of them there are it probably wouldn’t be that expensive for the exchequer either.
Assuming there are married parents who loeave their estates to each other then there is no IHT when there are young children
And let’s be candid, the wealth profile of youngish parents is usually opretty small
You are majing up an issue that does not exist except for those able to manage it
Ditto, capital gains
How would an inheritance tax work with wealthy families who have everything in trusts? Assets aren’t strictly passed over when you have a trust; you simply nominate beneficiaries to the income that’s generated.
That is not true now, but the regime could be improved. IHT is very effective at tackling many trust arrangements.