I'm not saying anything should be taken away from anyone. Just taxed. Taxed enough to encourage you to do something with the property you sit on. Like ensuring you rent it at full capacity or sell it if it's not worth renting (because of tax).

Tax is so low right now that you can sit on whole lot of properties for years and not even bother to rent them and still not loose much money.

That seriously harms others and should be at least effectively discouraged.

> I'm not saying anything should be taken away from anyone. Just taxed.

That's inconsistent.

Only if you believe tax is taken from you. Many people pay taxes without feeling they are being wronged in any way.

Many people actually take pleasure from paying taxes. Weird. I know.

The income from renting is already taxed, yes? The income used to buy the housing is already taxed, yes?

What more is there to tax?

Income used to pay interest on a home is not taxed (up to a limit). Paying interest (not principal) on a home mortgage is pretty much money down the drain (no wealth accumulation, a fee for the right to hold the debt). In this way, interest payments for housing you own are somewhat comparable to rent payments for housing you don't own.

The fact that income paid to interest is not taxed, yet income paid to rent is taxed can create a significant advantage to owning versus renting.

Income tax is not the only tax. There's tax on fuel, on tobacco. You tax cheap harmful things to make them more expensive to discourage them. Hoarding property is harmful and should be discouraged.

As a side note I think income tax should be 0. VAT as the main source of income seems way more just to me. Plus various taxes to make the environmental cost of activity known to the market (like CO2 tax, fuel tax) or tax on harmful things (like tobacco) to discourage them.

So people like me would pay no VAT on invoices because I export services (so they are reverse-charge in EU). I would only pay VAT on goods that I buy personally. I think the matter is more complex.

So did I, but still don't get it: your parents worked hard - all the kudos to them.

What does it have to do with you and your wealth you've gotten from them for free without even lifting a finger?

If you are going with the premise that someone's parents rightfully earned their wealth and it is fully theirs for them to do what they please with it - then it is also theirs to give to their children.

It is not about child's right to that wealth - it is about parent's right to give it to their children.

It is absolutely within parents' rights to give their property to whoever they want - as long as the child pays the income tax on the money that fell from the sky.

The parents already paid income tax. Where is the problem?

Children inherit lots of things from their parents like their genetics, upbringing, location, food, clothing and a place to live without paying taxes on those things so why should the inherited money or property be taxed? All of those things "fell from the sky", how is money different?

Parents can still be free to give what they own to children but you might prevent children from reciving it. For example by taxing whatever they recive.

That said I think inheritance tax is very bad idea and shouldn't exist.

So what does it have to do with you or anyone else that never lifted a finger, but have expectations? If it is not your family's properties, hands off and move on.

Me? Well, net I pay more taxes that I receive back in services.

Just want to make sure those who got there money from the parents do participate as well.

"I don't have it, so nobody will have it"

Their parents already paid the taxes for the money they gave to their children.

They paid tax on the money they earned, they worked for it. This one time payment doesn't absolve their heirs from receiving the money in perpetuity without paying a single penny of tax on the same money in the future.

People get high and might and see it as some sort of double tax, inheritance tax is the price heirs pay for receiving money they didn't earn through their own means.

I'm not saying every penny should be taxed, sure have a threshold.However if you are 35 with no great skills and just waiting for a grand-parent to pass and inherit $/€/£3m. With the sole aim of buying 5-10 apartments and living off punitive rent you charge others who don't have rich grandparents, then you should be taxed to the hilt.

That IS double tax, income that bought it was taxed already.

"However if you are 35 with no great skills and just waiting for a grand-parent to pass and inherit $/€/£3m. With the sole aim of buying 5-10 apartments and living off punitive rent you charge others who don't have rich grandparents, then you should be taxed to the hilt. "

Everyone should be equal in the eyes of law - this is anything but that.

I take your point, (and I'm not supporting parents contention) but it's worth recalling that under Eisenhower the highest progressive marginal tax rate was something like 90% - hardly anyone's idea of a communist state. Unsurprising as the two concepts are quite separable.

Almost no one actually paid that though:

Between 1950 and 1959, he notes, the highest earning 1 percent of Americans paid an effective tax rate of 42 percent.

https://slate.com/business/2017/08/the-history-of-tax-rates-...

If UK had progressive property tax that only Duke of Westminster paid, it still would be massive gain for real estate affordability.

Yes that's true (and expected, after all that's what the "progressive" part means).

Not supporting the silly 10 apartments thing.

I'm just pointing out that progressive taxation, even with very high top marginal rates, is not socialism - and we do ourselves a disservice when we pretend it is.

So if you have on the flag more that one red star you are by definition excepted from communist or socialist measures? The world is more gray than black and white and USA has its share of socialism in it.

Of course not, that's silly. So is the idea that progressive property tax (regardless of it's merit or lack thereof as an idea) is logically dismissed as a inevitable step towards eastern-block style communism.