If this is the way labour politicians are to respond to daily express campaigns, and the tory aligned Taxpayers' alliance, put aside any hope of a progressive future for this country.
'Attacked by Margaret Thatcher as being too extreme'
Political crossdressing is perverse in itself. But Byers looks evermore the drag queen.
Quite comfortingly, he has been attacked by 'leading Blairites'.
New Labour was meant to take the crosslandite principle of 'wealth creation to aid distribution' into reality.
so we'll do that by removing the distribution bit, then
Byers claims this is to aid wealth creation by making things more meritocratic.
So you live off of mummy and daddy, and their factory/stockbroking/gangland killing earnings? Not have to work but still get the rewards? Now that's what I call merit.
Also, why would somebody be motivated to drive economic growth when they can simply inherit wealth? I know that it might encourage the testator to earn more, but it simply rebalances this by motivating the beneficiary of the will to earn less. And to add to this, the state get's less to spend on social services for the worst off.
Personally, I am in favour of a 100% inheritance tax on all testamentary dispositions of real property and moneys over £275,000 pounds. If people want to get round that, we legislate. I do however appreciate that to many my views will seem extreme. Point is that things should be swinging in that direction, not the other way.
From the point of view of the Britain we have today, more equality and more meritocracy would be served in exactly the same way. more targetted, and higher (although possibly with higher thresholds, due to recent inflation) inheritance tax.
How about we aim for a britain where the work you put in reflects what you get out, and move that way? How about we aim for a britain in which inequality can only be ujstified by social benefit? or is that vision of mutual responsibility and proportionality a bit trotty and marxist for the likes of Byers?
As if John 'the enforcer' Reid's recent soundings off (see below) weren't bad enough.
Wealth creation to drive redistribution needs redistribution to function, or what we have is simple, economically libertarian Thatcherism.
So let's have a fairer britain, not one run by the Daily Express.
17 rants:
Yes, this an absolutely ridiculous idea.
Anyone who genuinely supported a real meritocracy would be with you in seeking to abolish inheritence rather than inheritence.
I'm a bit more moderate on this - and wouldn't support the 100% tax -but my starting point is that inheritence is a deeply regressive method of wealth distribution and a major factor in keeping poor people poor and generally hampering social mobility.
The American version of the Byers policy was recently foiled in the US senate by a combination of Democrats and moderate Republicans - the vast majority of whom you'd expect to be miles to the right of anyone in the Labour Party.
Is Byers still in the Labour Party?
Yes, but is this just Byers going a bit mad or is he expressing anyone else's views do you think? The starting point for socialists, or for that matter social democrats, should probably be that there ought not to be a right to inherit more than a certain amount. I think the 100% tax idea above a certain level is fine.
Perhaps we need a model motion for discussion in Labour Party and union branches if this nonsense from Byers is going to be repeated?
I know it's a cheap shot, but Byers joined the idiot brigade years ago.
FWIW, I think I'd exclude property from inheritance tax, but I readily acknowledge that my thinking on this subject is more than a bit rusty, so I may just leave it there.
Byers is a complete muppet. If he believed in a true meritocracy then he'd want people to achieve what they could regardless of their wealth e.t.c.
It comforts me that Chris Bryant is attacking him because in all ways abolishing the inheritance tax is a tory policy that conservative home endorses.
"FWIW, I think I'd exclude property from inheritance tax,"
That might be ok if you're talking about people who have 'a house' or 'a flat' which they're passing on to their kids, it's a slightly different matter when people have several properties or a large property portfolio.
Byers was a terrible Cabinet Minister and now he is demonstrating he is a terrible backbencher as well.
Does he honestly think that removing the IHT would benefit his constituents? I believe Browns increase on the cap for payment of IHT to the £325,000 area to be a good one. However, to remove the IHT altogether would a disaster. Where is he going to get the money from!?
I expect he thinks it would encourage enterprise and let the market do the rest. As I said a tory policy, I am quite comforted that the labour party will go nowhere near it.
Not as extreme as you might think...
... when you consider that although the government should get more than £20 billion in inheritance tax, it only receives £3 billion.
Aren't they wonderfully talented, those accountants (or thieves-for-hire we could call them, if we were dangerous trots on a one-way ticket to hell/1983/Bolshevik Russia.)
So, the argument might go, abandoning Inheritance Tax would be relatively painless and give us Middle England brownie points.
As it happens those figures come with a health warning - I only heard them at a Compass conference and haven't managed to back them up since. But they would have to be a long way out for the argument not to have its merits.
I don't mind taking tabloid flack for left wing policies that work, but all that pain for so little gain - gerr-off! i ain't no martyr.
As social democrats/ socialists/ progressives/ tag of choice we may be repelled by getting rid of Inheritance Tax but we have to face up to the fact that the accountant will always get through.
Here's a possble solution - we hypothecate Inheritance Tax to fund a British universal inheritance.
According to the original model see (http://www.universal-inheritance.org/index.htm) everyone gets £10,000 at 25.
I believe people are basically good (how niave) and if you make it explicit that BY GIVING OODLES OF CASH TO YOUR CHILD YOU ARE DEPRIVING SOMEONE ELSE'S OF A DECENT START IN LIFE we could make it Taboo to dodge it.
Let's have speech after speech after speech by government minister banging out the message. Let's have adverts with reality tv stars saying "Hi, My name is Alan Sugar, and I pay inheritance tax."(If only! if only!)
I'd actually amend that model slightly. I'd also give people a oyster style voucher card when they were 16 with £10,000 (sorry non-londoners, but i'm sure you get the idea).
This would be restricted to spending on education/housing/ starting a business. Any money you had left over at 25, would be released for you to spend on what you liked.
that's an answer to a problem posed at the compass conference at what age to give the universal inheritence - too old is paternalistic, too young is dangerous.
I'm not saying a universal inheritance is THE solution to our inheritance tax problems. But we can't just tut-tut at Byers and imagine the problem isn't there. check out the website at least. I for one, would be interested in other ideas to save inheritance tax.
The universal inheritence plan sounds really good to me.
I think it could be sweetened for Middle England by making the money go towards paying off student debts or paying towards the first step on the property ladder etc.
I'm not against just giving 25 year olds a cheque for £10,000 in principle but I can imagine it getting severely trashed from a PR point of view when two or three of the first recepients spend all the money on flash cars and crack.
£10 000 of crack is a lot of drugs! That would surely kill you . . .
Its bold definately. I think by 25 most people are mature. and anyway if you were scared of people spending money on crack, you wouldn't give benefits to anyone. As some bloke once said, we are best when boldest.
I definately think universal inheritance should be up for discussion in the compass youth mix, along with any land value tax... do we want some process perhaps to come up with our own policy recomendations? i must admit, knocking ideas around on this blog and email lists is interesting but does not seem that democratic.
any ideas?
Is that you calling from the dead, Harold?
One word describes Byers right now: "CUNT".
I thought Byers was always part of the idiot brigade myself...
"Its bold definately. I think by 25 most people are mature. and anyway if you were scared of people spending money on crack, you wouldn't give benefits to anyone."
Well, no. There's a difference between giving people a few hundred quid and giving them £10,000 as a lump sum.
It would be a big leap for the state to move from redistributing wealth to satisfy people's legitimate needs to doing so to potentially fund what taxpayers may consider to be irrational desires.
Of course there's a debate about what constitutes 'legitimate needs' and 'irrational desires' but, if we (Labour) genuinely wanted to sell this policy to the electorate - particularly those who would be footing the bill - we'd have to find a way to sell it to them beyond moral rightness.
Ok how about this
1)by 25 the chances are that a lot of the £10,000 will have been spent because it would have been made available through an oystercard style scheme which restricts what the money can be spent on (see earlier posting).
2)if someone has managed to not spend any of the money by 25, they are probably mature enough to cope with, what I admit, is an intimidating sum of money.
3)But if you were really worried about the criticsm ( which is a good one) you could go for the option of never derestricting the money. What qualifies as a legitimate use then becomes highly politicised, as David alludes to. But then again, no policy is perfect, and we need to do something to cope with the social mobility/inheritance tax malaise we are in.
Thanks for all the comments guys, much appreciated.
I thnk that it is important that merit doesn't get mixed up with mummy and daddy.
If I was going to sum up socialism in one phrase, it would be 'getting back what you put in'.
I reckon Blair and Marx would agree with that simplification.
Maybe I should do some trolling and bring in some people who don't agree.
Post a Comment
Abusive, hateful or off topic: I delete as I please. Mods=Gods. Be nice