A tax on grief? Can we change this?

[Oli]

There are a number of items that are exempt from VAT however, these are things that the government considers essential such as food, children’s clothing, women’s sanitary products, and other non-luxuries.

One of Britain’s best known “little known facts” is that food manufacturer McVities went to court against Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise in 1991 arguing that Jaffa Cakes were not chocolate covered biscuits (cookies) but miniature cakes; and therefore exempt from VAT. The crux of McVities’ case was that biscuits go hard when stale, whereas cakes (and Jaffa Cakes) go hard. The judge ruled in their favour and Jaffa cakes remain VAT exempt to this day.

But not all VAT arguments are so lighthearted and quirky.

Currently in the UK funerals, cremations, and burials are exempt from VAT. However the cost of headstones and other memorial items are not.

To argue that a headstone for a loved one is a luxury is preposterous. Having somewhere to go and something permanent to focus on can be an essential part of the grieving process, particularly when the headstone is in memory of a lost child.

Grieving families have enough to deal with without worries about where they will find the money to say goodbye to their child or pay the next electricity bill. Nothing we can do can make their situation better, but we can do something to stop it getting worse.

Neil, the co-founder of the Joseph Salmon Trust (http://www.thejosephsalmontrust.org.uk) recently gave an interview to the Huddersfield Daily Examiner about the issue:

“It’s not like VAT on a packet of biscuits – a matter of pennies – we’re talking about significant amounts of money. We would have thousands of pounds in our bank account than we do now if we didn’t have to pay VAT and that would mean we would be able to help a lot more people. We are back to our reserve funds at the moment and are struggling a bit. We wouldn’t be struggling at all if it wasn’t for this.”

As Neil said, the number of families needing the Trust’s help has been greater than anticipated this year, and fundraising has struggled to keep up. I’m hoping that our upcoming Hadrian’s Walk will be a real shot in the arm for the charity, and there are also other irons in the fire which should also help. However times are hard and the VAT issue is not helping.

And, taking a wider view, funerals are incredibly expensive for everyone whether it be child or grandmother. To further add to the burden of the mourning loved ones left behind is just not right. Like Neil says, a tax on headstones is "a tax on grief”.

The Joseph Salmon Trust has set up a petition on the Number 10 Downing Street website asking for the abolition of VAT on Headstones. If you a British citizen or resident you can sign it here:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/HEADSTONEVAT/.

[Senethro]

Headstones are a luxury. Quarrying defaces the landscape, transport of stone can't be done in a green manner, the placing of a grave takes up often valuable real estate.

Compared with cremation its a serious luxury

[Frank]

I'm inclined to agree with Senethro there, but still feel a bit borderline. I could do with a bit more convincing, I suppose.

My central misgiving would be that folks presumably don't have the luxury of having sensible desires when it comes to grief and 'what they need' from a funeral. To that end I'd suppose that taxing stones isn't exactly appropriate. But on the otherhand: cremation is both simple, easy and obvious. Big headstones and holes in fields? Hmmm.

[macgamer]

Burial of the dead is the seventh Corporal Act of Mercy. This is an act which almost all cultures share.

A head stone is a memorial to the burial of the dead person and links into seventh Spiritual Act of Mercy: prayer for the living and the dead. Although this latter point depends on belief in an immortal soul.

The state should facilitate this; taxes are an obstruction.

[Frank]

Spiritual, prayer, belief in an immortal soul.

Sure.

The state should facilitate this; taxes are an obstruction.

Really?

[Senethro]

Things change. Theres more people, less land per person and an ever increasing number of graves.

Almost all cultures? Or just the ones you care to remember at this point. Cremation is similarly found across a wide variety of places and times.

Headstones are a cultural practice, not a religious one. They're an affectation of those rich enough to afford them. Most Christians have been buried without them. The Catholic church has ever reveled in material goods and effects, so its the sort of thing I'd expect you to advocate. Pay money and send a memory to the next life with a demonstration of conspicuous consumption. Our family is a good successful family, please give the departed a seat on Jesus table.

[Apathy]

In all honesty I can't say I really care about this. The world has far more pressing problems for its citizens to worry about and campaign for than trying to make gravestones a few quid cheaper.

[Duggeh]

Our gargantuan Inheritance taxes are a far more malevolent swarm of governmental parasites during the time of death than VAT on the stonemasons bill and alcohol duty for drinks at the wake.

[Senethro]

94% of estates don't pay inheritance tax. The ones that do can clearly afford to.

So fuck you duggeh, redistribution is awesome

[LonelyPilgrim]

Headstones are a luxury, and the belief that they should not be taxed - and that grief somehow exempts people from rational decision-making - is utterly saccharin. Maybe I've spent too much time searching for unmarked graves helping my mum with her genealogy. Maybe I've seen far too many headstones reduced to unreadable decayed slabs of broken stone.

Nevertheless, I can't help but think that gravestones are vanity and like other vanities are perfectly fine for taxation. A gravestone does not make the deceased any less dead. It does not affect their soul in the afterlife in any religion I know of (unlike arguments of burial vs. cremation, for example). And forgive me for being a cynic, but I presume that it's not even strictly necessary for the deceased to be remembered by those who care to remember and future generations just won't give a damn one way or the other. Ergo, it's hardly a necessity.

Funerals cost so much because, like weddings, they've become major social events with bells and whistles on. I'm going to assume that a preacher to say a few words over a pine box at the graveside is still pretty economical and requires much less in the manner of choreography than modern funeral parlor fare.

[Gubbins]

94% of estates don't pay inheritance tax. The ones that do can clearly afford to.

That would have been the case if the 2006 government forecast had been right. Big surprise... it wasn't.

I haven't been able to find reliable figures for current rates, but estimates I can find make your 6% more like 30-40%. This has also been rising sharply in recent years as rises in house prices have far exceeded rises in the tax threshold. Many of these families can't realistically afford the tax, as their wealth is tied up in their own property - which is usually heavily mortgaged. This results in the sale of many families' houses: I have personally witnessed the combined problem of high house prices and inheritance tax change one rural village into a commuter suburb for London. It's not just a question of whether people can find the means to pay.

On a different note - how's this for a tax on grief: if you have someone cremated, the doctor signing the cremation form gets paid about £80 by the funeral directors (and thus the grieving famliy). This is for a signature saying that the person died of natural causes (thus they aren't going to burn any criminal evidence). Many doctors I know give this money to charity, but given the number of times a doctor doesn't get paid for other medically-related signatures - including death certificates, it seems a little unkind to ask a grieving family for this extra cash!

[RedCelt69]

I demand tax breaks for small wooden boats, barbeque briquettes and fire-starters.

Viking funerals FTW.

[Senethro]

Yah, alright, I can well believe the cutoff needs revised upwards or to have modified criteria given the property craziness going on, but the thing itself is a good idea. I'm now kind of curious as to what more recent data woudl say.

Regarding the doctor thing, I'm not a doctor or informed about the legal aspects relating to death, but making sure someones dead and that the body being destroyed is the person in question is kind of important, so its important to get it right. Why this should necessairly invovle paying the doctor isn't clear, but I'm sure theres a good reason.

A good reason which someone is attempting to obscure by using emotive language implying persecution of bereaved relatives by a high handed state. That always causes me to have an irrational backlash against their position and wonder what information they're holding back.

[Haunted]

Why not fund the headstone out of the earnings from selling any still usable organs?
They're dead it's not like they need them.

[RedCelt69]

Why not fund the headstone out of the earnings from selling any still usable organs?
Their dead it's not like they need them.

Couldn't agree more. I've said it before and I'll say it again; organ donorship should be an opt-OUT procedure, not an opt-IN.

Anyone who registers that their body-parts are not to be used after their death will also not qualify to receive organs should they find themselves in need. It would take someone extremely dedicated to the idea of bodily-continuation in an afterlife (e.g. Jehova's Witnesses) to opt out.

The problem of organ availability would be solved at a stroke.

[RedCelt69]

On the subject of inheritance tax... it's a thorny issue.

In some respects, I can't help feel that the government has no right to involve itself in getting a slice of the action when an estate is passed onto the deceased's heirs. It has always seemed a strange thing to tax.

On the other hand, there's another way of looking at it. Should any of us be able to pass on any advantages to our children in an egalitarian society? Not that I'm suggesting that our society is particularly egalitarian, but many political figures (regardless of party) regard it as a virtue; something to aspire to - or at least pay lip-service to.

And yet the passing-down of wealth is anything but egalitarian. The child of a wealthy family have an unfair advantage right from the outset; better education, more world-experiences, healthier diet... the differences are innumerable and they all bestow an advantage over those who have less prosperous beginnings.

Can (or should) the state intervene? I can see the appeal. Imagine the effect on curbing the excesses of capitalism. You can't take your wealth with you and you can't pass it on to your children. It would be a massive disincentive for the greediest members of any society... although it would be a huge driver of emigration from any country that attempted it.

Also, if two beautiful people have a beautiful child... they're also conferring an advantage on their offspring in a world which increasingly celebrates beauty and the cult of celebrity. Advantages are passed down from one generation to the next, whether the medium is genetic or financial. Inheritance tax seems to be a measure to make this slightly fairer. For consistency, however, should we instigate plastic surgery to slightly uglify beautiful children?


Returning to the original subject of tombstones, they are for the living - not the dead. Marble tombstones outlive the living who seek to memorialise the dead. It would make more sense to have wooden "tombstones" that lasted the lifetime of the mourners.

[Duggeh]

94% of estates don't pay inheritance tax. The ones that do can clearly afford to.

So fuck you duggeh, redistribution is awesome

Ignoring for a minute that your figure is utterly incorrect and that 50% is a much closer estimation..


Higher earners contribute more in income taxation, and more through greater spending taxes during their lifetimes. Yeah, it's awesome that they should also get a good hard going over for that larger contribution once they die. Very high earners, in addition, often make much less use of the various state infrastructures these monies fund. Such differenciation in itself creates additional employment into the bargain. Further aiding toward the states coffers.

Redistribution, as you phrase it, is in the case of this particular tax, in my point of view, about the same on the moral scale as grave robbing.


Oh yeah, and fuck you too. Seeing as we're being civil.

[RedCelt69]

Redistribution, as you phrase it, is in the case of this particular tax, in my point of view, about the same on the moral scale as grave robbing.

Well. Seeing as how the dead don't need grave goods... the morality of "grave robbing" is rather moot.

[Senethro]

ah bloo bloo bloo those poor rich people getting some of their money taken away and still having huge amounts left over my heart just breaks for them. oh how they're robbed of the services the state should provide because they use their earnings to get superior treatment from private alternatives, they had no choice but to do this.

A hearty thank you to those who are rich because they made a difference and benefited us all, but not to those who simply trod the easy path their parents laid out for them. Which is what this tax is about. Ensuring that others have some of the opportunities that the rich kids did. They're not robbing the grave, they're taxing the unearned income of the recipients.

Edit: I'm too lazy to go looking for an ultimate source (gov figs) but this looks pretty good.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/oc ... e-property

so fter a market correction, inheritance tax payer numbers are down again. are really 50% of people dying leaving estates over £325k?

[Gubbins]

Edit: I'm too lazy to go looking for an ultimate source (gov figs) but this looks pretty good.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/oc ... e-property

so fter a market correction, inheritance tax payer numbers are down again. are really 50% of people dying leaving estates over £325k?

I take it back - these are the government figures for 2006-7, which indicate that - after a 23% correction for house prices is applied - just under 10% of estates will be paying IHT. This is a surprise to me.

ah bloo bloo bloo those poor rich people getting some of their money taken away and still having huge amounts left over my heart just breaks for them. oh how they're robbed of the services the state should provide because they use their earnings to get superior treatment from private alternatives, they had no choice but to do this.

A hearty thank you to those who are rich because they made a difference and benefited us all, but not to those who simply trod the easy path their parents laid out for them. Which is what this tax is about. Ensuring that others have some of the opportunities that the rich kids did. They're not robbing the grave, they're taxing the unearned income of the recipients.

You talk about these "rich people". 10% is still a large percentage of the population - it's not all yahs. As a St. Andrews graduate, there's a good chance you'll end up being among them.

Secondly, these days people have already "trodden their path" before their parents die. For those who achieve parenthood, the average lifespan extends well into the 80s, suggesting their children will be in their 40s and 50s by the time they die. By that point they will likely have gone through the financially-difficult stage in life - to say that scrapping IHT would provide them with an easy run is nonsensical. Does IHT actually give people opportunities that poor kids "didn't have" (I speak as one of them)? Would this not equally be accomplished by increasing the income tax - should you specifically wish to tax the rich more? Income tax is a far simpler tax to deal with and would be apportioned more evenly.

Finally, even if you do consider the super-rich "yah" population - they have a role to play in society too, particularly in Scotland. Say that Sir Domhaill MacDougal-Stewart-Campbell dies, leaving his children unable to pay his IHT because his wealth is locked up in his castle; so the castle is sold to Abdullah Al-Fugger who only spends one week a year there, paints the castle pink and has no real understanding of what he owns and the nuances of the families who rent from him beyond the fact he owns a "big house in the country". Is that beneficial to society? Are there better ways to deal with this situation? Are there better ways to get 0.3% of the total tax revenue? These questions are rhetorical for a reason.