When Richard Pratt died recently and Kerry Packer some time ago, two huge estates were passed on to heirs.It can be argued that these were just two robber barons who could have easily contributed billions to the country that made them rich,and still have left their heirs wealthy beyond any ordinary persons wildest dreams. Death duties were originally designed to break up huge estates and give everyone a fair go,and avoid the aristocrat system established in England. With a decent threshhold, to allow a reasonable amount of wealth transfer, from one generation to another should they be reintroduced? Should wealthy individuals be exempted from contributing to their country. They cannot take it with nthem.

count me in...[its a great job creator]...i feel those who avoid paying taxes..[keeping their wealth..locked away..into famnily trusts..and multinational corp's...need to pay tax..[just like the wags slaves do]

but it needs to be done globally

and as persons do die BUT..[big business dont die..they must have a 30 year cycle...where THEIR death duties become due...[too]...if only to break up their monopoly positions...every asset should be sold off [on the web...and 25 percent tax paid on true...[real value]

big business then can buy the whole lot back[via share issue...or decide what is 'core business'...and buy that back...at the auction of the assets and estates...but 25 percent goes to govt...at least govt gets tax from everyone

again..it needs to be done globally...

with a built in forfiture for assets..not claimed to be belonging to a living...flesh and blood]..human..or any corp gone through the process

what has happend...[as you would know..is that business has adopted the rights people USED to have..

.and living beings..[with souls]..have become chattles of multinationals..that now are legally called persons..dead corps/persons..[that own yet other multinationals/persons

allowing huge monoploy positions/cartels..to hold eternal franchise.. under the protection of to big to fail..in-corpse-orations...[limited liability...corperations]..while still claiming rights..due only to persons...[in times gone past]

its time person..meant a living being..not a big business personum[persona incogneta]...or corpus personum

no business should have more..[or higher]..rights..than any living/..human being...

its time all..persons...lol.. were regarded as having duties as well as rights...

time to end the dead corp's..undermining the living...

all bodies/persons... should be serving life...[not hiding under the dead ltd..incorperation..or trusts...to avoid paying their due's

The problem is that it will be thin end of the wedge.Very soon all individuals will be paying death duties.

Another consideration is the loss of capital by countries that introduce death duties.They will simply relocate to another country that has no duties.Currently we have Aust Business council suggesting that Corporate taxes be halved while the GST to be increased.With countries like Aust needing capital,it is very easy to for our leaders to be pushed into a corner,of higher taxes ,lower wages,lower corporate taxes etc just to keep industry here.

The solution is not greater taxes.We need smaller Govt,less corporate power and the ability to create our own credit rather than borrowing form OS.

I think it'd be a good idea, subject of course to Peter's caveat of "With a decent threshhold" - but that's the rub, isn't it? What's a decent threshold?

Certainly, in the case of the odious and erstwhile Packer - who boasted about not paying personal income tax while he was alive - it would seem reasonable that his estate should be taxed.

Actually PtB, Richard Pratt was no "robber baron" as you seem so willing to believe.

Mr Pratt was probably THE biggest benefactor, by a loooooong shot, to good causes in Australia. I bet his life has done more good, for more people, than everybody registered on this forum COMBINED. PtB, you're talking through your "you know what". Richard Pratt was a GREAT Australian. And I bet you have NO IDEA where, or how, his wealth is being distributed after death. I bet you have NO idea about his Carlton club presidency and how it was used for magnificent philanthropy works that benefited thousands upon thousands of disadvantaged Aussies (the ignorant just think he was an Aussie Rules fan who bagged the top job there for his own ego - - - - how wrong and stupid they are).

PtB, you obviously "envy" the rich and famous; so much so that you even want to control their assets after their death. Hey, isn't envy supposed to be a sin? But I guess that extremist Christians like yourself think they can talk their way out of anything when they meet God at the Pearly Gates. Careful PtB, you just might find yourself directed towards that warm "other" place instead. You'd have a devil of a time down there.

*...every asset should be sold off [on the web...and 25 percent tax paid on true...[real value] *

Fair enough UOG. So all that silver under your bed should be sold,
plus the dope plant in the garden, on Ebay, 25% tax! We the people
should benefit from you rich buggers :)

Btw CJ, Kerry Packer paid hundreds of millions of dollars in tax.

as long as its the same laws for all...[why not]...

we dont need income tax..[nor sales tax,..if we got a turnover via deathduties...and everyone had to pay thats fine...but no egsemptions...bring it in over night and tax every penbny that leaves the country

i suspect i pay more tax than you...that you possably mannage to make your tax return come out negative..due to your re-investing...and thats fine...i have no doudt your an honest broker...but not so the others far more wealthy than us combined

i wouldnt swap what i have for the pratts wealth...i like my worry free life...but when my life is over..what do i care what goes where

[besides wealth dosnt last long...the first generation builds it the second spends it the third start from scratch..at least with death duties the poor get something...even if its only free education and very basic health care

currently we educate people and big business gets all that training for nothing...then avoids paying even tax...its morally corrupt...a good accountant can make any set of books look like negative return

death duties is fair...were dead...whats the worry...at least they leave something behind for the living...even if their whole life..they didnt give a damm about no one...

we could even allow some to give to charity to offset death duties somewhat..[but not completly]...subject to it being truelly charitable

or spouses and children get their share tax free..or on a sliding scale..[means tested]...as long as it applies equally..who can complain

Death duties was a Christian thing, because we all believed once upon a time, that all property was vested in Almighty God, represented by Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, or whoever the Monarch was at the time, and that the Monarch/State had a claim to a share of it on the death of the subject. Since we seem to no longer believe that, or a noisy and influential minority appear to believe that all property should belong to the State, then we have abolished the right of all people to have the justness of State acquisition tried in a court.

Death duties resulted in the subdivision of the great land estates originally owned by English settlers in Australia and allowed lots of tenant farmers to own their own farms and land. This was a great move for Australia and made for a prosperous and economically viable country. The same did not happen in Argentina, and their landed gentry took their wealth offshore, while still keeping their large estates.

I think it is obscene that Richard Pratt is able to pass on a fortune of five billion dollars, and Kerry Packer an atheist was able to pass on his fortune, while there are 100,000 homeless sleeping cold and wet in Australia this winter. We know that Mr Pratt was a benefactor of certain charities, but as one wag said, stealing from the poor to give to the opera, is not necessarily a good thing. By collusive marketing which is proven, Mr Pratt was able to take small amounts from very large numbers of consumers, and accumulate a vast fortune. My heart bled for a grazier I knew in 1972, who inherited 8000 fat bullocks from his father, and had to sell them to pay death duties. Some of them were up to eight years old, and had been kept back to avoid paying income tax during his fathers life time.

I think it is time that death duties were reintroduced, but only by the Commonwealth. The tax on working people should be lowered to give them a better lifestyle

You can count me in as a supporter of death taxes, although not because it is fair, or because an atheist was allowed to keep his earnings(!)

It's just that I think we are better off it people rise to positions of influence on their merits, and not on the coattails of their parents. I see no evidence that the Packer and Murdock empires have benefited at all from their being passed onto the kids. It would be far better for all concerned had instead both handed over the reins to his top executives.

When Frazer was P.M. and Howard his Treasurer, a V.A.T. or G.S.T as it's now called was favoured strongly by Howard but vetoed by Malcolm as not being politically wise.Tax reform is always dangerous as the workers get taxed on the returns from their labour, whereas the Wealthy, the minority, are taxed on the returns from employing their capital.In a Democracy numbers count.Howard should have advocated that all income tax be abolished and only a 20% TAX on spending,up to say $100,000. be imposed and a larger one, after that threshold.

Yes I KNOW! all you accountants and financial advisers would be out of a job, but there would no longer be a need for complex tax options.

With income tax, Capital gains tax, and transfer duties, a further death tax would only be a triple tax on the same assets.

Why not simply do away with private ownership of everything? Or has that been tried and failed.

I see it more as a fairness and a moral issue.
Is it fair that someone like James Packer has all those billions handed to him when Kerry died? Is it right to receive so much without working for it? Once it was seen as quite obscene and bad for the ethics and morality of the person who inherits. Money not earned was viewed as a sin. Funny how in regards to government welfare payments that still seems to stand but it doesnt apply to the spawn of the filthy rich anymore.

The family home and any family owned and run business should be exempt as should personal possessions like jewelery or artwork etc but any stocks, shares, investments, cash and investment property etc should be taxed on the death of its owner.

MIKK,

Visy was entirely family owned and run. Thus by your reasoning it should be exempt.

Q.E.D.

If you want a handout, sign up for the dole.

I'm also in favour of death taxes. I'm against such obscene accumulation of wealth in the first place, but since capitalism seems entrenched yes, let the next generation make their own way. It's often argued that this kind of socialist agenda kills creativity by killing the incentive to create, or to be productive or whatever, but the true creative/entrepeneurial spirit is not enticed by the profit in the first place: "the well that springs not from the heart is vain" (Goethe). If we took the whole wealth and kudos factor out of the equation, only those with a genuine vocation would do the hard yards in the first place. Money, rather than inspiration, is far to often the goad.

I certainly would be against the reintroduction of death duties.

As I recall death duties was responsible for the breakup of many family farms and rural properties. There are many rural families that are asset rich but income poor.

After death duties was abolished, Capital Gains Tax was introduced and this gave the government much more income than DD ever did.

So now some of you are advocating DD and Capital Gains Tax.

Already there are taxes if one owns property other than your own home and if you employ people you are taxed because of that. All these taxes are designed to milk the willing and enterprizing.

If a person accumulates assets because of skill, enterprize, risk taking and hard work, why should he not be able to pass that on to his heirs.

It would have little effect on me, but it seems some are just envious of the success of others. Yes, DD is an envy tax!

Sounds like your typical 'under-achievers' thread to me.

The good old 'tall poppy' will never die.

By the way. We are all presented with oportunities, it's just that it's very hard to emass a fortune working 38hrs and having the weekens off.

Putting this aside, please don't tell anna lie, casue she will impliment it in a flash.

p.s. Why not look in to just what these men provided for their communities before you reply.

How many jobs did they create collectively for starters?

I've twice married into farming families and am familiar with many in the rural community, and despite all the "battler" stories I can attest that they all have private health insurance, and sending their heirs to expensive private schools is de rigueur. There is also rarely a kind word wasted on the city cousins who are asked to dig deep during periods of drought. The offspring of these true blues too, by the way, rarely stay on the land. The land is generally "milked" dry in these circumstances rather than being used in a sustainable manner that might be conducive to generational holdings. There might be a case for exemptions where families are shown to have a genuine commitment to the family farm, and certainly there are such families out there, but this should be clearly established. Having said that, death taxes are a band-aid solution to the gross disparities that need to be addressed out there.

Squeers,

Sounds like you have reaped bitter fruit from these farmers and are suffering from sour grapes.

Last time I checked the communist regimes were collapsing.

rehctub: "Why not look in to just what these men provided for their communities before you reply. How many jobs did they create collectively for starters?"

These men are dead. They took their rewards while they were alive. They built big houses in the best suburbs, eat at the best restaurants, took overseas holidays and had small armies at their beck and call. Good luck to them - I can't see too many begrudging what they got. As you say, they almost certainly worked hard for it.

The people we are talking about now are their kids. Their daddies gave them a fantastic life style, sent them to the best schools, took them into their companies and groomed them for success. If they can't take over their daddies life with that sort of start, then they should leave it do those who do have what it takes. Passing on the power and privilege because "their daddies deserve it" isn't a good reason.

I believe a threshold of one million dollars for each child should apply, and the same for a surviving spouse, but the fifty percent that used to apply should be applied after that. Before 1972, an ordinary working man, was allowed a tax free threshold that enabled him to support a wife and children, without his wife having to go out to work, unless she wanted to. Most mothers stayed home until their kids went to school and then worked to pay off their mortgage faster or save for luxuries that they could otherwise not afford.

When a certain lawyer got elected in 1972 he raised wages almost double in twelve months, but he did not raise the tax free threshold, so millions of workers were inflated into higher tax brackets, and millions of mothers have had no choice but to go back to work. I know how much ordinary workers paid in Income Tax in 1972, because I had twenty people working for me at the time. They earned better than the average wage, and for a year, between them only paid $12 each in income tax. Their annual salary was about $2,000 or forty dollars a week in 1972. The tax free threshold was about $1400 of that or about two thirds of average weekly earnings.

When death duties were abolished the tax required to fund government has fallen on the ordinary worker, and if it was reintroduced, a tax free threshold, of at least $600 a week could be introduced, reducing the push for higher wages.

It is all very well to say that there be no death duties or gift taxes that had to go with it to make it work. But government needs money for defence and other purposes, and if we don’t want to be governed by some other system then we are liable to pay taxes. The income tax base had to expand during World War II to fund the war, but now we are at peace it should contract again for ordinary working people. Money is property and should be justly levied

Shadow Minister (let’s hope you never get into power)
Unfortunately, as you demonstrate these pages are too often used for asinine knee jerk reactions, rather than “thoughtful” commentary. Anything that has the least whiff of socialism gets lambasted via clichéd allusion to historical precedent, rather than the merit of the “idea”—which has never been properly put into practice. I’m talking about “democratic socialism”, already working wonders in its approximate forms in Scandinavia. History has amply demonstrated our specie’s propensity for corruption and megalomania, so autocracy or oligarchy in any form cannot be trusted. Popular democracy, however, is almost as bad; the “people”, when they’re not utterly self-seeking en masse, or apathetic, or plain ignorant, are just as prone to corruption as the individual cum dictator. My critique of our current system, beyond its rapaciousness and utter incompetence, is based on the simple question: why should a rich kid, or old person, or anyone else with money, get a transcendentally more privileged education, or health care, or general leg-up than the poor demographic?
Try to think this through outside your prejudice.
In my view the likes of Packer Junior should be given a hundred grand at the most and be told that they’re lucky bastards!
And I don’t have, nor do I have any reason to have, sour grapes.
Cannot you see that you’re just a mouthpiece for the status quo, an unthinking drone, and that the current system is unsustainable as well as obscene?

Ah, the old "envy of the rich" human foible, keeps bugging many
Australians, as they rush off to buy lotto tickets, to become
rich themselves.

Personally I have no problem with those who have lots of money,
hey, if it gives them lots of thrills, so be it, its not what
my own life is all about.

The rich spend alot of money and create alot of jobs. Personally
I'd rather see Australian assets owned by Australians, then
by the rich from Tokyo, Shanghai or New York.

Last time I checked, there were in fact not many seriously
rich people in Australia at all. China and India have more more
billionaires then we do.

Tax the rich blindly and they have the choice to move their
affairs elsewhere, you will thus land up with nothing, so I don't
see the point.

Best we have more rich people paying some tax, rather then
no rich people at all, just to help some cope with their envy.

Squeers, history will show that while one generation may emass a fortune, another will no doubt loose it. So in essence, what you are saying should happen, already happens only the fortune often goes into the hands of another smart business person. And thank god for that as if it went to the government, as you want, they will most certainly piss it away.

What you also fail to relaise is the number of jobs that the rich create, along with the amount of community support they provide.

Do you think the likes of Gerry Harvey would provide the community support he does if he knew his assetts would be handed back to the crown when he's gone so they could decide how best to waste it.

Now on the other hand, if we had governments that would stop handing out money in the form of welfare and provide for the needs of kids instead, then attitudes may well change. But until then I feel all business people will begrudge handing money to governments (both sides) so they can continue to finance the wastefull lifestyles of many within our community.

The government collects "revenue" to provide services. But because they have to win elections, all governments are obliged to keep taxes as low as possible, and ideally promise to cut taxes at election time. This in turn deprives essential services of adequate funding, and those that cannot afford the far more salubrious private school/health suck eggs. There should be steep progressive taxation during a person's life "and" death tax!
But there's really no point wasting words contra the kind of fawning, willing co-option the last few comments represent. The reason we have such gross disparities is because, astoundingly, the majority actually support it!
Try thinking outside the square (or preferably, outside Orwell's whale).
And it's no good blaming governments, any of them; they faithfully represent the people, indeed they are the people! They have no choice, they're in the business of winning elections. As long as the moronic majority (read ideologically obtuse) go on supporting a grossly unfair distribution of wealth, nothing will change.
And a big flipping raspberry to those blockheads who don't get it!

Squeers,

The reason that many inheritance taxes have been abolished or reduced to say 8% is that most of those that had money simply put structures in place to avoid paying them. Note Sweden abolshed them.

The rich and talented are extremely mobile and generally able to move to reside where ever the least tax is paid, and as tax is residence based, the gov gets 0% as Sweden discovered with its 90% super tax, and many of its best and brightest left.

Your question:" why should a rich kid, or old person, or anyone else with money, get a transcendentally more privileged education, or health care, or general leg-up than the poor demographic?"

So the rich spending money on improving the next generation is unfair as compared to what? Buying yachts? Australia's acedemic results are one of the highest in the world, largely subsidised by the private sector. Similarily the middle class is forced to buy private health cover by the state to subsidise the medicare system.

Many of the weathly don't send their kids to private schools, and many who do make huge sacrifices to do so, and resent the green eyed socialists that think it comes easily.

So fortunately all of the governments of a similar mind to you have been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Upon death and inheritance, capital gains tax liability “crystalises”.

The value of the asset inherited is at its current value, not its purchased cost.

Any gain in that time essentially becomes liable as a capital gain, so a "de facto death duty" is collected by the avaricious state to squander on the idle and meaningless existence of the beneficiaries of handouts.

Arjay said the introduction of death duties will see an immediate flight of wealth into tax free safe-havens.

Too right.

But the real "loss" is through the flight of "energy, innovation and intellect", held within those people fleeing, who created the wealth they now defend, in the first place.

Additionally, the notion that you make the poor better off by taxing the wealthy is just another of the great big porky pies of socialism, the evidence of that is well documented through the deplorable social history and life quality experienced in many "socialist" states, around the world.

Fact: government is there to administer the minimum tax it needs to function.

It is not to protect the indolent and foolish from the consequences of their idleness and folly.

Wealth is best held and managed in the worthy hands of those who created it, not in the foolish hands of welfare recipients.

I'm beginning to suspect that you just say the first thing that comes into your head, PtB, without the slightest regard for accuracy.

If you get a notion that supports one of your own peculiar prejudices, you simply go ahead and blurt it out.

This is yet another prime example.

>>Death duties were originally designed to break up huge estates and give everyone a fair go,and avoid the aristocrat system established in England.<<

Utter tosh.

If you did even the most cursory research into the topic, you'd find that in 6 A.D., Augustus imposed a 5% inheritance tax - the vicesima heriditatium - and guess why he did so?

Not to "break up huge estates".

But to pay for his army.

(Source: "The age of Augustus" by Werner Eck, Deborah Lucas Schneider and Sarolta A. Takács)

Look it up if you don't believe me. It's on page 89.

Seriously, if you are going to make something up, you should at least make sure it can't be as easily refuted. You just look like a clown.

You then are in danger of becoming even more clownish, when you come out with stuff like this as a follow-up.

>>Death duties was a Christian thing, because we all believed once upon a time, that all property was vested in Almighty God, represented by Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, or whoever the Monarch was at the time, and that the Monarch/State had a claim to a share of it on the death of the subject<<

What utter twaddle.

By all means, find ways to express your disappointment with the world and its ways, and how it has been so mean to you and your law degree, and how the courts are illegitimate, and how Magna Carta rools ok.

But please, don't invent stuff, simply because you would like it to be that way.

It's. Just. Another. Tax.

And don't forget, there are many ways in which death duties, estate taxes and inheritance taxes can be legally circumvented. Just ask Gordon Brown. He's been wrestling with it for decades.

Well put col!

As for governments doing the best they can with what they have, which I think is your line of thought, gee wizz, I hope you're not reffering to 'anna lies' as her governement have wasted the best years of our lives considering the amount of 'win fall dollars' they received from the mining & property boom only to leave us 'high and dry'.

The bottom line is that if you tamper with the 'wealth creators' then they will simply go underground and we will all miss out.

Without buying into the ideological perspectives of some, I find myself persuaded by comments subsequent to my earlier post. Yes, it's just another tax, and those whom it would target would find ways around it anyway - possibly by taking all their money offshore, instead of investing a good proportion of it in Australia.

As for Peter the Babbler's strange argumentation, I think Pericles has nailed it (again).