Its odd that Australia seems to be one out in not having inheritance tax.

In America they have a Gift Tax. When Oprah Winfrey gave away something like 100 cars on one of her shows, everyone was estatic, unfortunately they didn't realise they had to pay a Gift Tax on the cars, so some could not afford it and could'nt accept the cars.

The car would have to be in your name when accepting it, so the Tax would have to be paid first.

I believe they Tax you on Lottery wins as well.

NO WAY I would agree with that tax -- if I wanted to leave what I own then thats what I have worked hard for and have also paid bloody taxes on it to up keep and look after it -- I have also saved the Government a heap because of looking after quite a few people while they were ill too.

The Pollies seem to want everything THEIR way and to milk us dry -- but begrudge us anything.

The best thing about an inheritance tax is that the person who had the money definitely doesn't need it any more.

An inheritance tax would be political suicide for whichever party introduced it. We already have so many taxes that it would be just indecent to do so. People work (and pay tax) all their lives and it would be obscene to tax that money yet again on their death.

As has been noted many times on this and other fora, only the poor and the workers pay the bulk of taxes. The wealthy and corporations have all sorts of ways to mitigate or avoid it.

Is not an inheritance tax the same as death duties?   Which we used to have

The government might try to argue that the beneficiaries are taxed on money they receive from an estate, but the result is the same - they would be taxing money that has been taxed again and again over the deceased persons life. We are getting to the stage that we will be paying tax on just about any transaction where money changes hands.....taxes on taxes as we now pay with GST. We pay huge taxes and excise on fuel, tobacco, alcohol etc., etc and THEN have to pay GST on top of that.

It is the modern day version of slavery, where we work and toil but get nowhere in life. The working class are mere "cattle" in the global financial system. Anyone who thinks we should be paying MORE tax has rocks in their head.

I want to see the large corporations taxed but not so much they lose interest in investing in this country.

We are all human and try to avoid paying tax in some areas if we can...I think many taxes are unnecessary and when doing my return I do try to take advantage of any legal loopholes.

I would not let some of these "economists" take care of my home budget...

Keep paying your taxes, barak - the rest of us are relying on you.

" Of course, any such tax would be opposed by the wealthy elite. You wouldn’t expect otherwise. But if the tax threshold were set at, say A$2 million, only a tiny proportion of households would be affected. And the rest of us would benefit directly from the extra revenues, which might then be used to pay for universal free tertiary education, for example, or a major increase in public housing. "

http://theconversation.com/piketty-challenges-us-to-consider-if-we-need-to-rein-in-wealth-inequality-67552

As long as they don't tax me on my first 10m, I'm ok with it!