The European Court of Inhuman Discrimination

The two old ladies from Marlborough who have lived together all their lives have lost their case in front of the European Court of Human Rights.  They feel that it is an unfair discrimination which relieves the surviving partner in a marriage or a civil partnership of inheritance tax, but levies inheritance tax on the survivor of a long family partnership, such as theirs.   The result would be that the survivor of the Marlborough Two will have to sell the house to pay the tax, and that their generation will have to pay inheritance tax twice, once on the death of the first partner and then again on the death of the survivor.

I cannot see how this can be justified, either by the European Court, or by Parliament, or by the Government.  In the debates when the Civil Partnership Act was going through, there were attempts to extend the benefits to family partnerships of this kind, but they failed, probably because of pressure from the Treasury.  There were even allegations that those who supported family partnerships only did so because they were opposed to civil partnerships for gay couples.  Some gay supporters of civil partnerships did however see the equitable case for family partnerships in circumstances like those of Marlborough.

We do not have to wait for the further appeal which can apparently be made.  Civil partnerships could easily be extended by Parliament to cover qualifying family members.  Nevertheless this discrimination leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.  Marriage and civil partnership are both based on long term loving relationships – why should members of families who chose to spend their lives together be excluded and lose their houses?

Comments

[Winchester whisperer]

You are absolutely right that this is a daft ruling and that Civil Partnerships should extend to family members. I agree with IDS that families are the bedrock of society and should be helped by the Govt whether in terms of being paid in tax credits for childcare or care for the elderly or enabling siblings to attend the same school. We have our beloved casebook law in this country and it is sickening to see this overturned by Eurocrats and our own bureaucrats.

[Lord Truth]

This decision does seem unfair yet the reason is obviously that including 'family partnerships 'will open up many avenues for people -particularly the wealthy-to escape paying any inheritance tax at all-though it would mean a field day for lawyers...Many great houses harbour very strange assortments of characters...half looney aunt Matilda..a secretary who is really a bastard son...the live in married couple who have no money and sponge off their host relation-often for years and years-One doesnt need to be an Agatha Christie to see the problems such tax relief would raise..Its a difficult problem....

[Philippa Pirie]

This deeply unpleasing judgement is the result of a deeply unpleasant tax. Abolish the tax and the legal wranglings disappear.

[Ian Thorpe]

Multi layered taxation seems to be becoming quite fashionable around the world.
If some political organisation would become the Sensible party and promise to reveal how much of our tax money is spent on employing box tickers, bean counters and nit pickers to devise new ways of taxing us on the tax we have already paid I for one would vote for them.

[des merrion]

This result is a disgrace.
When are we going to get sorted with our own backbone on correct moral issues?

[I. Jefferson]

A rationale, for the exemption from inheritance taxes between husband and wife, was that whilst the husband worked and accumulated assets the wife could not, as she raised the children and managed the home. To tax the husband's assets, on his death, would cause his widow further impoverishment. Over time, things have changed a bit with survivor pensions, assets tending to be in joint names and, of course, divorce causing a share out of "family assets". So, there may be slightly less reason, today, to have such an exemption from tax.

To me, there seems to be no justification for a similar exemption to be extended either to civil partners or to siblings, such as the ladies from Marlborough, as they are not prevented, by the burden of bringing up children, from working and accumulating savings. It would be more appropriate to extend such tax exemption to the analogous case of unmarried couples who have raised a family.

To call the decision of the ECHR as discriminatory is actually muddled thinking about the purpose of the exemption.

[W. Orking-Class]

The current Inheritance Tax is a perversion of the original intention of taxing the estates of the 'Landed Gentry'. It is obscene to know that many working class people who have been taxed on their earnings, taxed on their savings, taxed on what they purchase and who, during the course of their working lives have prudently managed their affairs, creating a stalbe home environment, should be taxed at death. Are there no 'White Knights' in our society that have the back-bone to advise Gordon Brown that the Inheritance Tax is immoral and should be abolished?

[Chris Sherwood]

Blaming eurocrats for the ECHR ruling makes a great soundbite, Winchester Whisperer, but it suggests you might not be fully familiar with the difference between the EU and the Council of Europe - the ECHR is part of the Council of Europe, which is not related to the EU. The Council of Europe includes every country in Europe (and then some), and the ECHR's decisions apply to all of them as signatories of the Convention. The Court is of course composed of judges and lawyers, and not eurocrats.

[John Hearnshaw]

Des Merrion,s proposition wouldn,t go down at all well with married childless couples!
The two ladies involved in this judgement took a decision NOT to marry-but to stay in the "family home" provided by their parents.They didn,t spend a lifetime of work to get into this position-unlike a homosexual lifetime partnership.
And remember-prior to Civil Partnerships-"marriage" was not an option for same-sex couples!

[Bill Coleman]

This sounds like something the ancient Hebrew king Solomon might put into place to generate more money for the royal coffers.It seems that nothing has changed after all that time