'nuff said ?

i disagree

It was supposed to be a tax on the super rich but now it seems it is avoidd by them and paid by the not poverty stricken but certainly not wealthy who have even a modest house.
Perhaps it should be changed to a modest initial level progressive to not excessive level but no loopholes for escape tax.

RoverDC:
No, it has to go completely. Every single thing I buy or acquire in my short time on this earth has been paid for with money that came from my TAXED pay packet. I'd love to hear someone defend the practice of the state then gathering all that up after I die, and helping itself to any %age of it.

It's a nasty pernicious tax. If the loss of revenue is an issue, there are many other ways of raising it.

I wonder if DC has read "The Lotus Eaters" ?

It is true that everything that you buy is paid out of taxed income, but tax is also paid on (nearly) everything you spend too. Economists will tell you that savings are just deferred spending, but if you die first without spending your savings, you have evaded those expenditure taxes. In the taxman’s eyes with death duties/inheritance tax, they are just getting what is theirs, "It's only fair".

Doesn't make it right though.

no, you've just deferred them to the beneficiaries of your will.

At the end of the day, something governments of all colors have forgotten is that it's our money, they spend. Not theirs. And money raised through taxation, is basically money stolen from us with the threat of jail if we don't pay up.

Now people aren't stupid, and accept that the idea of taxes is to provide for a better society. But implicit in that acceptance is fairness equality. If people feel the tax system is unfair, or unequal, then how do you think they feel at being forced to pay into it ?

Inheritance tax is probably the fairest and most sensible tax. Children from well-off families typically have a big headstart in life. They don't need the inheritance as well.