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Institute of Directors Berkshire
Influence and Networking at the local level |
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IOD Proposes Radical Tax Changes
In a paper published on 20th February, the Institute of Directors (IoD) put forward a detailed proposal in favour of changing the tax system to abolish the current inheritance tax. The proposal also suggests radical changes to Capital Gains taxation, including the merging of business and non-business assets in some cases.
IOD Director General Miles Templeman is quoted as saying:
“Inheritance tax is a threat to an increasing number of people. The victims will be those who have chosen to save money to ensure that they will not have to rely on the taxpayer in their old age, but who then die earlier than they might have done.” Critics of the Inheritance tax point to the fact that the tax targets the thrift and financial independence of ordinary working people. “It is time for it to be abolished” added Mr Templeman, “with some of the tax benefits offset by changes in capital gains tax.”
Capital gains tax has got into a technical mess, as Mr Templeman explained: “Layer upon layer of historical rules are still relevant and frequent changes have been made to the current system since it was introduced in 1998. Our proposal, to taper all gains and losses down to zero over a ten-year period, would allow old rules and long-term investments simply to be ignored for tax purposes. Gains on shorter-term investments would become very straightforward to compute.”
www.businessinberkshire.co.uk/iodberkshire
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