Charles Amos teaches political theory and conducts original social research. He writes The Musing Individualist Substack in his spare time.
The howls of derision can already be heard from the socialists, and, worse, Reform UK, upon rumours that Kemi Badenoch is going to abolish inheritance tax at conference in October.
Jonathan Hinder MP has rhetorically asked “Inheriting *£500,000* TAX FREE not enough?” while Robert Jenrick said it wasn’t his priority because it is “primarily a tax cut for the super rich”. Yet Badenoch’s potential inheritance tax abolition, alongside her reduction to the housing allowance, is part of an agenda which is increasingly regressive, and all the better for it too. Ordinary people have been plundering the rich for too long. Justice demands that if tax cuts must be made, then it is the wealthiest that should get them first.
Inheritance tax is a great injustice. Why? Right wing politicians often talk about hard work giving people a strong claim to wealth, but this cannot provide an objection to inheritance tax because neither the giver whose London townhouse has exploded in value since 1970, nor the receiver, have necessarily worked hard for it.
Then we have the misnomer of double taxation being inherently wrong, despite few to no one arguing to abolish VAT after income tax, or, the triple tax of VAT on fuel duty. Finally, we have the standard argument cutting tax increases economic growth, but as Dan Neidle has shown, IHT ranks pretty low in growth increasing tax cuts.
No. The chief objection to inheritance tax must be it violates private property which has been gained justly. Now, Badenoch is no Robert Nozick, so, she’s not going to say ‘taxation is theft’ outright or support the full implications of his historical entitlement theory.
The inconsistent advocacy of Nozick’s ideas, of course, will not concern her, because Conservative and Liberal Democrat swing voters are happy with their hodgepodge of thoughts on distributive justice and she’s merely responding to them. Indeed, Badenoch is probably backing this proposal because inheritance tax is the least popular tax in the country. Maybe she doesn’t even know who Nozick is?
As I’ve said before, the best argument for the state’s existence is for it to protect against extreme need and to provide public goods that private initiative cannot, or, struggles to do. But neither of these get the British state to spending 44.3 per cent of GDP and the highest tax burden since the Second World War.
At most it gets them to 10 per cent. And, importantly, neither function gets the state to the mass redistribution of wealth we see today. For instance, the top 10 per cent of earners pay 59 per cent of income tax. Indeed, both functions mentioned above should be shared either equally, or, at most, proportionately.
If someone is starving, I don’t see why billionaires should exclusively pick up the tab, especially if billionaires themselves are already helping the poorest via their investments in capital goods. The case is similar for defencing and policing. Since everyone benefits roughly equally from it, everyone should pay roughly equally too.
Libertarian or not, I hope most would agree that if you’ve created wealth, or, acquired it via voluntary exchange, then, it is rightly yours. Likewise, beside with the two justifications already mentioned, I hope most would agree it is an injustice to forcefully take such wealth from its owner to give it to another person just to make their life easier. For instance, I can’t take £20 from you to pay for my Chinese takeaway.
Yet the taxation we see today is exactly this injustice, after all, the non-pension benefits bill is £145bn. And this injustice is greatest with taxes on the rich. To show this, let us consider which theft is a greater injustice.
One: £20 is stolen from your wallet but the caring thief replaces it with a £10 note (the poor’s situation).
Two: £20 is stolen from your wallet and nothing is replaced (the rich’s situation). Obviously, the greater net loss from a thieving, the greater the injustice.
So: Here’s the main argument as to why inheritance tax abolition is better, say, than increasing the personal allowance to £15,000. Each £1 of tax cut should go to reducing injustice as much as possible. Each £1 of taxation on the richest is a greater injustice than each £1 of taxation on the poorest because the £1 of taxation is a greater net loss to the rich than the poor.
This is because the poor get benefits while the rich don’t. Tax cuts for the rich reduce injustice most per £1. Inheritance tax mainly falls on the richest in society. Inheritance tax hits a tiny number of very rich people, or, 30,400 estates or 4.72 per cent of deaths, whose heirs need to effectively pay their tax bill. The average payment for inheritance tax is £212,000. The only net fiscal contributor regions, London and the South East, pay 46 per cent of inheritance tax. Thus: Each £1 of tax cut should be granted to inheritance tax as it maximally, or, close to maximally, reduces injustice relative to other (politically possible) tax cuts (especially for poor people).
Defending the rich because their entitlements have arisen through the proper processes of creation and voluntary exchange is never popular. Right wing people like to dress up tax cuts for the wealthy on the moral basis of hard work or growing the economy to ultimately help the poor.
In the case of inheritance tax abolition, neither case will work. It is time the Tories just came out and defended the rich properly from the plunder they have constantly experienced since the end of the Second World War, speaking boldly in favour of largely inviolable private property rights. Will Badenoch do so? Probably not. But, at the very least, she might be helping out the rich a bit if she does propose abolishing inheritance tax in October.
Charles Amos teaches political theory and conducts original social research. He writes The Musing Individualist Substack in his spare time.
The howls of derision can already be heard from the socialists, and, worse, Reform UK, upon rumours that Kemi Badenoch is going to abolish inheritance tax at conference in October.
Jonathan Hinder MP has rhetorically asked “Inheriting *£500,000* TAX FREE not enough?” while Robert Jenrick said it wasn’t his priority because it is “primarily a tax cut for the super rich”. Yet Badenoch’s potential inheritance tax abolition, alongside her reduction to the housing allowance, is part of an agenda which is increasingly regressive, and all the better for it too. Ordinary people have been plundering the rich for too long. Justice demands that if tax cuts must be made, then it is the wealthiest that should get them first.
Inheritance tax is a great injustice. Why? Right wing politicians often talk about hard work giving people a strong claim to wealth, but this cannot provide an objection to inheritance tax because neither the giver whose London townhouse has exploded in value since 1970, nor the receiver, have necessarily worked hard for it.
Then we have the misnomer of double taxation being inherently wrong, despite few to no one arguing to abolish VAT after income tax, or, the triple tax of VAT on fuel duty. Finally, we have the standard argument cutting tax increases economic growth, but as Dan Neidle has shown, IHT ranks pretty low in growth increasing tax cuts.
No. The chief objection to inheritance tax must be it violates private property which has been gained justly. Now, Badenoch is no Robert Nozick, so, she’s not going to say ‘taxation is theft’ outright or support the full implications of his historical entitlement theory.
The inconsistent advocacy of Nozick’s ideas, of course, will not concern her, because Conservative and Liberal Democrat swing voters are happy with their hodgepodge of thoughts on distributive justice and she’s merely responding to them. Indeed, Badenoch is probably backing this proposal because inheritance tax is the least popular tax in the country. Maybe she doesn’t even know who Nozick is?
As I’ve said before, the best argument for the state’s existence is for it to protect against extreme need and to provide public goods that private initiative cannot, or, struggles to do. But neither of these get the British state to spending 44.3 per cent of GDP and the highest tax burden since the Second World War.
At most it gets them to 10 per cent. And, importantly, neither function gets the state to the mass redistribution of wealth we see today. For instance, the top 10 per cent of earners pay 59 per cent of income tax. Indeed, both functions mentioned above should be shared either equally, or, at most, proportionately.
If someone is starving, I don’t see why billionaires should exclusively pick up the tab, especially if billionaires themselves are already helping the poorest via their investments in capital goods. The case is similar for defencing and policing. Since everyone benefits roughly equally from it, everyone should pay roughly equally too.
Libertarian or not, I hope most would agree that if you’ve created wealth, or, acquired it via voluntary exchange, then, it is rightly yours. Likewise, beside with the two justifications already mentioned, I hope most would agree it is an injustice to forcefully take such wealth from its owner to give it to another person just to make their life easier. For instance, I can’t take £20 from you to pay for my Chinese takeaway.
Yet the taxation we see today is exactly this injustice, after all, the non-pension benefits bill is £145bn. And this injustice is greatest with taxes on the rich. To show this, let us consider which theft is a greater injustice.
One: £20 is stolen from your wallet but the caring thief replaces it with a £10 note (the poor’s situation).
Two: £20 is stolen from your wallet and nothing is replaced (the rich’s situation). Obviously, the greater net loss from a thieving, the greater the injustice.
So: Here’s the main argument as to why inheritance tax abolition is better, say, than increasing the personal allowance to £15,000. Each £1 of tax cut should go to reducing injustice as much as possible. Each £1 of taxation on the richest is a greater injustice than each £1 of taxation on the poorest because the £1 of taxation is a greater net loss to the rich than the poor.
This is because the poor get benefits while the rich don’t. Tax cuts for the rich reduce injustice most per £1. Inheritance tax mainly falls on the richest in society. Inheritance tax hits a tiny number of very rich people, or, 30,400 estates or 4.72 per cent of deaths, whose heirs need to effectively pay their tax bill. The average payment for inheritance tax is £212,000. The only net fiscal contributor regions, London and the South East, pay 46 per cent of inheritance tax. Thus: Each £1 of tax cut should be granted to inheritance tax as it maximally, or, close to maximally, reduces injustice relative to other (politically possible) tax cuts (especially for poor people).
Defending the rich because their entitlements have arisen through the proper processes of creation and voluntary exchange is never popular. Right wing people like to dress up tax cuts for the wealthy on the moral basis of hard work or growing the economy to ultimately help the poor.
In the case of inheritance tax abolition, neither case will work. It is time the Tories just came out and defended the rich properly from the plunder they have constantly experienced since the end of the Second World War, speaking boldly in favour of largely inviolable private property rights. Will Badenoch do so? Probably not. But, at the very least, she might be helping out the rich a bit if she does propose abolishing inheritance tax in October.