I am in favour of it it is redistributive and there is so much we need to pay for.

Cards on the table, My parents have both passed away and as they lived in a council house I inherited nothing!

I feel that it's perfectly understandable that parents want to protect and leave something for their children but feel if you are fit and well and capable of looking after yourself then you should.

Cards on the table again I have a son on the autistic spectrum and his future is uncertain and understandably I would like to protect him especially, I hope that society will when I'm dead and gone.

I wont make any further points but I'll wait and see if anybody is interested in this topic,

Cheers

Yes it is an interesting issue. And the way you wrote about it Mick, is too.
That there is so much we need to pay for you said. It makes me feel a bit guilty that I don't feel so altruistic.
I can see where you are coming from, and I can also see why 'middle england' (daily mail land) shrieks about this.

I am in favor of an inheritance tax. It should be graduated as the income tax is in the United States (i.e. a _% tax on the first $100,000 a higher _% on the next $100,000 and so on). Special dispensation should also be given on a need basis to cover circumstances like those Mick described. Putting my cards on the table as well, my father is fairly wealthy, but I don't expect to see much in the way of an inheritance...

Since inheritance tax is fixed at 40% over a very large threshold (275,000 pounds) I fail to see why there is any fuss at all.

Besides the middle classes all know that it is easy to get around thh issue with property by transferring it to their children long before they die (this also gets around issues of having to sell houses to pay for care home costs).

A total non-issue if ever there was one.

Is £275,000 a very large threshold?
That's less than my mums house, my two sisters, and definately my brothers.

I'm pleased that they have special dispensation in the states, sounds like a sensible idea, I agree Rob it should be a non issue with so few estates incurring this tax at the moment but it will increase as long as the housing market doesn't crash (insert the words 18% interest rates, Tories and incompetent in a sentence of your choice) like Damon's family mine are above the freshhold, It's not just the mail/express types who are up in arms about this, on the Guardians comment is free most of the Guardian readers were angry also!!!