Sir, – Maria Murphy (Letters, October 23rd) and your columnist Joanne Hunt (“Inheritance rules penalise people who are single and have no children”, October 23rd) comprehensively depicted the gross unfairness, anomalies and discrimination against childless single people and childless surviving spouses embedded in our inheritance tax laws.
Similar criticism of the tax also validly applies to its impact on many relations, cohabitants and friends of a deceased who are beneficiaries of a will.
In early July in a lengthy submission, we made the case for abolition of the tax to Jack Chambers, the Minister for Finance, detailing the gross injustice which is part and parcel of this tax.
As Joanne Hunt details, there is no inheritance tax in Austria, Estonia, Malta, Latvia, Norway, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden.
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If the Government was unwilling to abolish it, we advocated its fundamental reform. Save for tinkering with the threshold limits in the recent budget, the Government did nothing.
On this issue, not just the Government but all the political parties and most Independent TDs are entirely out of touch.
From engaging with many people in recent weeks, it is clear that a significant majority want inheritance tax abolished.
Maria Murphy asks that inheritance tax feature as an important issue for debate in the coming general election.
I intend to do everything possible to ensure that it is. – Yours, etc,
ALAN SHATTER,
Chairman,
Inheritance Tax Reform Campaign,
Dublin 16.
Sir, – Reading Wednesday’s edition of this paper, I was surprised at myself for being surprised at the differing terminology used in two separate articles.
Maria Murphy (Letters, October 23rd) refers to people without children as “childless”, whereas Joanne Hunt (Money Matters, October 23rd) refers to the same people as “child-free”.
The former, to me, sounds somewhat accusatory, and the latter suggests an element of choice.
I think I’ll use the latter, “child-free”, in all cases where such a description is needed. – Yours, etc,
PAT QUINN,
Inchicore,
Dublin 8.
Sir, – I note the debate in your publication on “inheritance tax” (Letters, October 23rd). Ireland does not have an inheritance tax. We have capital acquisition tax.
This tax is applied to all gains of capital whether through gifts or inheritance. It is a tax on recipients of unearned capital and is cumulative over one’s lifetime.
It is a very progressive taxation.
The unwavering focus on the inheritance tax-free threshold for children is misleading and compounds a fundamental misunderstanding of the tax regime, its benefits and drawbacks for society and the individual.
It is incumbent on those debating the issue, including the media and other commentators, to step back from the emotive language of inheritance and focus the bigger picture of the acquisition of wealth by individuals. – Yours, etc,
NIALL WALSH,
Dublin 18.