Letters: It’s not just the wealthiest who are punished by inheritance tax
SIR – Recent letters have discussed inheritance tax (December 28). I am 86 years old. I was born and brought up in the Black Country, the eldest of four boys, whose father was a holder up in a steel rolling mill.
I went to grammar school, leaving at sixteen with seven ‘O’ levels. I did National Service thereafter, and married the daughter of a miner. Together we made our way in life with its ups and downs, both paying our dues as required.
We have two children and four grandchildren. I do not consider myself wealthy, my so called estate consisting of a house I have lived in for over fifty years, plus a modest sum of savings and investments. I am advised that, on my death, as things stand, my beneficiaries will have to find around £100,000 for inheritance tax before (perhaps lengthy) probate may be granted. And that simply because I have been conscientious, prudent - and died.
The system hardly seems fair.
Arthur Nicholls
Camberley, Surrey
SIR – Some suggestions regarding the reform of inheritance tax:
Firstly, it should not have to be paid until after the estate is settled.
Secondly, the element of the tax that is payable on a property should be delayed until the property is sold.
Thirdly, the rate should be reduced to an acceptable level (not one that requires an industry to avoid).
Finally, the threshold should be substantially increased to reflect inflation.
Huw Wynne-Griffith
London W8
SIR – Why is it that some of your correspondents (Letters, December 28) think abolishing inheritance tax will be a vote winner for the Tories?
Currently, the tax applies to less than 5 per cent of UK estates; the latest figures show that 41,000 were liable to pay the tax in 2022-23. If the polls are to be believed, it is going to take more than these 41,000 (many of whom would probably vote Conservative anyway) to see Rishi Sunak returned to No. 10.
In the meantime, thanks to freezing the allowances, many of our lower paid workers have been dragged into the tax bracket, including pensioners. For example, my wife deferred her retirement for several years, giving her an improved state pension which, last year, became liable for income tax. As she doesn’t have a private pension, or any other form of income, this means that she is paying tax on a pension that she contributed to with money that had already been taxed.
Rather than scrapping inheritance tax, the Conservatives should raise tax thresholds, which would benefit far more people.
Matthew Biddlecombe
Sampford Courtenay, Devon
SIR – Whenever the Conservative Party talks of scrapping inheritance tax you can guarantee an election is imminent.
Strange that after 13 years of Tory government the tax still exists.
Mike Metcalfe
Butleigh, Somerset
Dying with dignity
SIR – My husband spent the last five months of his life with wonderful “hospice at home” service (Letters, December 29).
The palliative care was greatly appreciated, yet he found no dignity in having a nappy changed or in slowly starving to death once his body could no longer accept food or liquid.
It was his mental health, however, which suffered the most. Knowing he would never go fishing or sailing again, sing with his choir or tend his cherished garden was extremely painful to him and to those who loved him.
He would have welcomed the dignity of an earlier death, as opposed to the indignity of living long after his body was able to support him, and depression overcame him.
Elaine Watson
Ripon, North Yorkshire
SIR – Craig Heeley (Letters, December 27) tells us that “surely only God has the right to decide when he is ready to meet me.” At present the doctors decide when God will meet you. Hopefully any new legislation will allow me to decide when I meet God.
John A. Landamore
Lutterworth, Leicestershire
Royal Mail mess
SIR – Tim Horne (Letters, December 29) got off lightly with only a £2.50 “fine” from Royal Mail for receiving a card with outdated stamps.
We too received a notification from Royal Mail that there was an undelivered item for us with insufficient postage. To retrieve it, there was a charge of £5. Thinking it might be a birthday present for my wife, I paid up.
When the item arrived, it was only a Christmas card, bearing a sticker giving the reason for the additional charge as “counterfeit stamp”.
It was a second-class stamp complete with barcode and looked indistinguishable from the genuine article. On comparison under a bright light with a recently purchased stamp from the Post Office however, the barcode on the genuine stamp had a shiny surface whereas the counterfeit was flat and dull.
So I contacted the sender, who told me that they had purchased their stamps from the Post Office.
Is there a printing error which is costing recipients and raising extra profits for Royal Mail?
Stephen Ennis
Thames Ditton, Surrey
SIR – A Christmas card arrived yesterday bearing a perfectly normal looking first-class stamp. The Post Office had placed a yellow sticker on the envelope saying “counterfeit stamp” and demanding £5.
I fail to see how any penalty can be more than the cost of another first-class stamp, as I am not the culprit.
The card was from an old friend who is now very concerned as he has sent a batch of cards to a large number of grieving widows with stamps from the same sheet.
Alan Green
Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire
SIR – Before Christmas, I received a notification from Royal Mail that an item could not be delivered but must be picked up from the sorting office some distance away.
On arrival I was presented with a Christmas card which had no stamp on it, and a charge of £5. I recognised the writing so declined to pay and left.
J Lockwood
Honley, West Yorkshire
Range anxiety
SIR – Far be it from me to contradict the statistics the AA rely on to claim that range anxiety for electric vehicle (EV) drivers will become a “thing of the past” (report, December 28). However, I interpret the figures differently.
Fewer EV drivers are running out of battery while on journeys for the same reason that avian flu has not killed any dodos this year.
People who need to drive long distances, to a fixed schedule, especially in adverse weather have largely given up on the electric car (pipe)dream and are driving modern diesel and petrol cars instead. They have far more range and have a lower lifetime environmental impact than most electrics.
The slump in the value of secondhand EVs and the reduction in both the production of new EVs and sales to private buyers seem to bear out my analysis, rather than the AA’s.
We need either to wait for better battery technology, or to open the regulatory door to Toyota’s ammonia engine and to blue hydrogen vehicles.
Mark Hodson
Former head of research, RAC
Bristol
Churchill’s lager
SIR – Winston Churchill was known for his love of Champagne (Letters, December 29) but what is possibly less well known is that on his visit to Denmark in 1950, the Carlsberg company brewed a new beer to commemorate the occasion.
With tasting notes of Cognac (as Churchill liked his brandy) and an abv of 9 per cent, the lager was christened Carlsberg Special Brew, and the company sent two cases to Churchill’s home in 1951 for his enjoyment.
The brew was reduced to 7.5 per cent abv a few years ago because of taxes on higher alcohol content beers, but it is still popular to this day.
Brian Thorne
Shillingstone, Dorset
Travelling across Canada via memory lane
SIR – Last year we had an amazing trip from Quebec to Vancouver (Features, December 19).
We barbecued with distant relatives near Lake Louise, often called the bluest lake in the world, and the train ride from the Rockies to Vancouver was amazing.
But perhaps even more amazing was that, while on the train, a gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and asked, in a familiar accent, where I was from. When I replied “Hornchurch”, he asked whether Cavendish Avenue still existed and if so, whether the little pub across the road remained.
It turned out he had served there in the RAF during the Second World War. Small world.
Charles O’Doherty
Hornchurch, Essex
Glass asparagus
SIR – The picture of Bretforton church’s stained glass window depicting asparagus (Letters December 28), brought back memories. I was christened and married in the church, as were two generations before me, all market gardeners growing acres of asparagus.
We ate our asparagus with our fingers and had a plate on the table in which to discard the end piece.
Gillian Print
Wellesbourne, Warwick
SIR – I first encountered asparagus in 1960 when, as a young lad from a relatively humble background, I joined the Merchant Navy.
At my first meal, the steward placed a plate in front of me with asparagus resting on a thin slice of toast, accompanied by a finger bowl with a slice of lemon.
He knew I was not familiar with such ceremony and watched me with interest. Luckily my fellow officers showed me the ropes.
I have been a fan ever since.
Denis Findlay
Waltham Chase, Hampshire
Murdered lines
SIR – My mum and I agree almost entirely with Anita Singh’s review of the BBC’s Murder is Easy (“Mediocre Agatha Christie story is only made worse by unnecessary rewrites”, Arts, December 28).
The dreary and unnecessarily woke, anti-English re-write – and completely flat direction, devoid of suspense – might have just about been bearable were it not for the main character’s terrible mumbling. While Penelope Wilton’s speech was as clear as day, from his very first scene every time David Jonsson had anything substantial to say it was almost indecipherable.
We resorted to subtitles for the second part. It was still two hours of our lives which we will never get back.
Chris Bond
London SE11
False fire alarms
SIR – The false alarm for the Blackpool Tower “fire” – which turned out to be just orange netting blowing in the wind (report, December 29) – took me back to my teaching days in the seventies.
A story in one of the books we taught from featured a group of children running down a hill to put out a fire at a cottage – but the fire was actually nasturtiums climbing up the walls.
Hazel Crowther
Waterlooville, Hampshire
Keep your hat on
SIR – The foibles of Nick Kester’s permanently bare-headed great uncle from Leeds (Letters, December 23) may have been balanced by one of my uncles on the Isle of Wight, who wore one all the time - even in bed.
When he was asked why he did this, my aunt interrupted his reply to say: “So that I’ll recognise him”.
Bruce Denness
Niton, Isle of Wight
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