Conservatives 'consider scrapping inheritance tax to win over voters'

[Protagoras]

Tories getting desperate now ...

https://news.sky.com/story/conservatives-consider-scrapping-inheritance-tax-to-win-over-voters-costing-treasury-7bn-a-year-12921334#:~:text=Senior%20ministers%20are%20report edly%20in,to%20£7bn%20a%20year.

[malvolio]

Tories getting desperate now ...

https://news.sky.com/story/conservatives-consider-scrapping-inheritance-tax-to-win-over-voters-costing-treasury-7bn-a-year-12921334#:~:text=Senior%20ministers%20are%20report edly%20in,to%20£7bn%20a%20year.

Hardly desperate. IHT is a very unpopular tax and an easy win. £7bn is a lot to thee and me, but not a lot in terms of GDP.

This next election will be closer than many are predicting. Even the BBC's Kuesenberg is saying that Starmer still has a hill to climb and a lot of potholes on the way. And if he does win a workable majority he will be constrained by the same issues that are bedevilling Sunak and Co. Basically, regardless of who wins, economically it will be more of the same.

[woody1]

Things can only get better...

[malvolio]

Things can only get better...

Well that worked well last time, didn't it? Illegal wars, IR35, buggered up economy, stealth taxes, politicisation of the civil service... Let's hope a new Labour has learned from those mistakes!

[eek]

Well that worked well last time, didn't it? Illegal wars, IR35, buggered up economy, stealth taxes, politicisation of the civil service... Let's hope a new Labour has learned from those mistakes!

the real damage from IR35 is post 2010 - before that the law was proportional - since then it's scared Banks into offloading all IT to India because they can't get UK skills...

[malvolio]

the real damage from IR35 is post 2010 - before that the law was proportional - since then it's scared Banks into offloading all IT to India because they can't get UK skills...

A beautiful illustration of why most of our elected MPs have no awareness of the real world. We have a strong service economy, so let's make sure the only way to support it is to move it to another, much bigger service economy in the hopes that it will promote a profitable mutual trade, while using an outmoded and terribly wrong piece of legislation to kill off the local workforce.

WE can blame St Vince of Cable for starting that of course, and Osborne for implementing it.

[Protagoras]

IHT is a very unpopular tax and an easy win.

You’re right, it is unpopular. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/inhe...snt-vote-tory/)

This seems odd given how few people pay it, but I suppose that’s sentiment.
Clearly, it’s more of an issue in the South. (https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2023/07/15/iht_politics/)

There’s a great opportunity for government to claim a bigger share of intergeneration wealth transfer. The idea of a ‘lifetime gift received’ tax to replace IHT could generate much more revenue. I can’t help thinking that this would be even less popular though, if people had to start paying tax on gifted cars, university fees and house deposits, for example.

Apparently, scrapping IHT could help the Tories in marginal constituencies …

[eek]

Apparently, scrapping IHT could help the Tories in marginal constituencies …

The panic is that any Tory seat without a majority of less than 15,000 or so is in play come the next election. It's not marginal constituencies the Tories are worried about is almost everywhere...

[malvolio]

The panic is that any Tory seat without a majority of less than 15,000 or so is in play come the next election. It's not marginal constituencies the Tories are worried about is almost everywhere...

Snag is a lot of those seats will lose Tory voters who will defect to the LDs rather than Labour. I don't see a Blair level Labour victory, not least because a lot of people don't trust Starmer on anything, but a narrow-ish majority.

And to be fair, I would rather Labour had a working majority rather than having to rely on support from the Scots Nats. It would give them room to prove their case where it matters - or not, as the case may be!

[jamesbrown]

Well that worked well last time, didn't it? Illegal wars, IR35, buggered up economy, stealth taxes, politicisation of the civil service... Let's hope a new Labour has learned from those mistakes!

Oh, come now. I'm pretty much the opposite of a Labour fanboy but, "illegal wars" aside, every single one of those has been made 10x worse by the Tories . Anyone suggesting otherwise is unserious. Take stealth taxes, for example, the freezing of personal allowances is predicted to raise another £30b per year by 2028. Totally buggered economy, check. Unworkable IR35 variant, check. Massive politicisation of the civil service (to the extent that even Simon Case is reprimanding Ministers), check. The Tories certainly didn't learn from Labour's mistakes .

As an aside, and as other reporters have noted, No. 10 is not seriously considering the removal of IHT, either in this Parliament or as a manifesto commitment. Most likely, it was briefed by someone who worried it might be considered