Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Of course taxation achieves much the same ends. The entire value of an estate above a certain value is taxed at 40% in death duties, so every generation of Lord Mucketymuck's family has to find 40% of the estate value to pay in hard cash, or they will indeed have to move out of the manor! That's why the majority of Britain's "Stately Homes" are now owned by the National Trust, and not the original family who built them.
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Same here in USA. I think currently any estate valued over $250,000 is subject to an inheritance tax. While we are alive, the annual property and school taxes we pay based on the current value of our houses can add up in a few decades to be more than what we initially paid for the house. Some elderly people bought homes after WWII in Austin and paid them off by the 1980s. They then retired on limited incomes. The property values in the mid-1990s rose so high, and continue to do so, that many of these people were forced out of their lifetime homes due to property taxes rising to a level higher than they could afford to pay. Over here you never really own your house, you will be paying the bank and/or the county and school district until you die!