Heaven forbid that we Tories would support lower taxes.

We should be about lower taxes and tax simplification. The money will come back into the economy anyway, as has been shown by so many other countries and administrations. Taxes are a penalty against success and typical of the petty minded envious dogma of the left. Laffer curve works at the state and local level as well as nationally. So what if people want to spend their money abroad? The idea that this was bad went out with exchange controls. Radio 4 Talking Politics is currently looking at the arguments for abolishing IHT.

The fact that we would all then be in a consumer-led, subsistence-based economy without any reliable base for future investments appears not to matter to such writers. How would you pay for it? " the figure is relatively trivial". Let's have the courage of our convictions and abolish it. The amount raised is miniscule, as has already been pointed out further up the thread, cutting back on just one area of fraud would make up the shortfall. As someone who lives in Belgium with a second house in the UK, it looks as if I could be clobbered even more under these proposals. Added to which we are going to have to do something to encourage people to save for a pension.

Not being an economics wonk, I'm afraid I can't back these suggestions with the fiscal reality, however I do think they bear further examination. Stephen Byers as well has come around to believing it should be scrapped, but such proposals have been rubbished by the Treasury and by the dti. Policies are available which provide varying levels of cover. No wonder my daughter and son-in-law spend their money on luxury holidays and have no savings. It immediately removes the charge that it can't be paid for. Richard, I see your comments on the 5 points in my earlier post, but I would just say this in response. Even accounting for inflation, the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten richer in the last 80-100 years even in the last 30.