Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic
All legal of course. Would you call this moral? I'd say no.
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On the other hand, there are some taxes that are immoral, at least in my view.
If my father dies, I inherit a house. Let's say, I want to move into it, after I inherit it, leaving my current rental house. Could I do that? Probably not, because of the law.
Assume that this house has a worth of €150.000 at the moment I inherit it.
The inheritance tax for parents to children is 10%, to be paid within one year. Therefore, after my father dies, I have to find 15K somewhere, to pay as taxes. If I can't, the house needs to be sold and the taxes must be paid from that money.
Most people in the Netherlands don't have 15K lying around. €150K is a cheap house in a somewhat rural area. A "normal" house in a bigger city can cost up to €300K or more. I have okay savings, above average even, but not enough to just give away 15K and not be bothered by it, let alone 30K or more. I don't know too many people (especially singles) who can just pull that amount of money off the bank and think: "Oh well. Bummer."
What gives the government the right to grab 10% of the worth of a house, on the grounds of the fact that the owner of it is dead, and someone else now gets to be the owner by the wish of the deceased?
I say none. In my view, inheritance tax is immoral and just a money-grabbing law.
If there are no children, and the owner decides to leave his house to a brother, sister, or even other people, I don't even want to *think* about inheritance tax. It can become as high as 40%. And that's AFTER the reduction, around 10 years ago. (Other taxes were increased to compensate, however.)
Basically, it comes down to it that the house has to be sold. There are A LOT of people who can't inherit it because without selling it, the tax would be unaffordable.
So... sometimes, I'm not too shocked or upset to read that governments are swindled out of some money by big corporations. If the government would get that money, would they lower taxes such as the inheritance tax? Probably not.
(I do not know this for sure, but if you don't put the remaining money into another house, I wouldn't be surprised if it's seen as income, and you'd pay income tax (at least 32%) in addition to the inheritance tax.)