To The Guardian
The debate on inheritance tax focuses on the wrong issue: the lower threshold for IHT. The real problem is the upper threshold – not a precise value set by Parliament, but we all know it exists. Above it are so many exemptions, trusts, loopholes, schemes, dodges and scams, that IHT becomes entirely voluntary.

Two-thirds of Britain’s 60-million acres are owned by 0.4% of the population, and are largely exempt from IHT. As this land never comes to market, these grotesque perpetual fortunes distort life for the other 99.6% of us. If massive landowners had to pay 40% IHT, like anyone else, it would raise tens of billions per year; 92% of people never pay IHT. It’s a tax you don’t have to pay until you’re dead; and land cannot be hidden or removed to a tax haven; what’s not to like?
Martin Lyster, Oxford

The inheritance tax, or, rather, the ineffectivenes of the inheritance tax, is a scandal in both the US and UK. I have only lobbied Congress once. My wife and I were doing our little bit to protect the IHT, which Republicans are always trying to abolish. My pitch was this: “Back In 1776 you guys rebelled against Good King George, and one of the things you wanted gone was a self-perpetuating aristocracy. Over two centuries later you are now deliberately creating an inherited aristocracy of wealth, passed from generation to generation with the help of unscrupulous accountants and lawyers. One should be able to pass on money and possessiont one’s children, but in moderate amounts. The debate should be the meaning of “moderation”. Multi-millions do not denote moderation. I should have also said that massive wealth buys education at Harvard and Yale as well – with all the benefits great contacts bring in life – generation after generation.