Another Voice

stephen jones

Replace with a diamante wheelchair? Why not replace the monarchy with a Republic on the Queen's passing?

Time we left feudalism behind and joined the 21st century.

Christopher Moseley

Prince Charles should consider himself lucky. Here in Saudi Arabia the heir to the throne (which has considerable if not quite absolute powers) is already well into his eighties.

Nicholas Storey

I disagree with an implied (but important) premise on which this argument rests: that we should continue to strive to outlive our ability to enjoy living. I also believe that many elderly people, with anything much worth leaving, who have private pension provision to cover their needs, could easily do much better for their children than choose the rest home in which they might well all become contemporaneous residents. The second point is shorter than the first so I shall make that first. Assuming a fair market (which is, one hopes, temporarily unavailable), the elderly should, in good time, sell up their houses and buy some of the one bed-roomed accommodation which is being thrown up everywhere (obviously, avoiding the marshlands of Gloucestershire)and divvy up the spoils in excess of their own reasonably foreseeable needs. Those with indexed-linked pensions could also comfortably divvy up some of the cash investments too. None of these people is going to end up on a zimmer frame in the snow. The fact of the matter is that a great number of them wish to maintain control of their possessions because they are unreasonably afraid that their families might desert them and "they never know what they might need". Their very favourite catch-phrase is "It'll all be yours one day!". This is, largely, a Forsytean, middle-class phenomenon and aristocrats (even though they maintain their titles) often hand on management of their estates, long before they become senile. The working classes, with nothing to leave, don't really figure in the argument, for either side.

Turning then to the first point: increasing longevity, even in an increasingly polluted environment, must largely result from all the proscriptions against enjoyable but dangerous or unhealthy living, which the frightened Forsytes observe. People are told that they mustn't smoke and, in certain situations it has become a criminal offence to smoke. They are sometimes told to drink a certain amount of red wine and sometimes told that even a glass a day could provoke cancer. They are even told that chocolate should be taxed - and the stalinists and body fascists who instil the fear of the consequences of even moderate indulgence in pleasurable pursuits, such as smoking fine tobaccco or drinking great drinks, cause so many old people to become really old and to end up nappy-clad, spoon-fed vegetables, quavering on the edge of a Parker Knoll invalid chair, between two worlds -'One dead, the other powerless to be born'- in some shaded corner of a vamped-up, ramped-up country house, with 'Count Down' for afternoon entertainment and fewer and fewer visitors. The answer, then, must be to encourage certain levels of excessive enjoyment in the elderly so that they go out sooner but smiling - and their children can, at least, fund the grandchildren's university degrees before they too resume smoking Sullivan Powell's Oriental cigarettes and enjoying at least two Negronis or Dry Martinis an evening, before they polish off a bottle of 1985 Krug and half a bottle of triple sec.
My final point is this: I thought, Parris, that you were a Tory! So what's all this pandering to the stalinists who, in their own good time, will get around to the interferences with our private distribution of our own estates without prompting from you?!
NJS

John Moss

The baby boomers had the best of the post WW2 growth and most have comfortable homes worth far in excess of what they paid for them. Their parents should ignore them and do as you suggest, passing their wealth to Grandchildren, many of whom have no prospect of home ownership and can only look forward to decades of debt and high taxes courtesy of Brown's profligacy.

The legislative change to give this effect would be the one which ended the con trick of the state pension, (taking 50 years from now) and required all people under 20 to buy a money purchase pension with 25% of their NI contributions.

Roger Williams

Ant Colony.

Michael

Ever since the end of WW2, lawers drafting wills have been advising their clients to skip a generation. The primary reason is to scape "bunching." Grandparents' house is below the Inhertitance Tax level and so is Child's, but if Child inherits Grandparents' house, Child's estate will be over the threshold and Grandchild will have to pay IT.

Of course, this was much more important in the old days of Estate Duty, when the rates were steeply graduated.

The downside is the rule against perpetuities. One can leave property to one's child for life, with a gift over to one's grandchildren. A gift to a grandchild for life with a gift over to his children may well fail for perpetuity.

People making wills like these settlements; they can be hedged around with all sorts of conditions, ensuring that, even from the grave, the settlor's wisdom will endure, to govern and restrain the youthful follies of his descendents.

Alexander

I'm not sure why one needs to skip an entire generation to start down this path. For example, my oldest nephew just turned 18. As such, American law allows him to set up a private pension fund free of all future taxes, to a maximum of his earned income, capped at $5,000.

Since, like most teenagers, he worked during the summer, I set him up with his own pension -- which I funded with an "early inheritence" cash gift my mother gave me.

Admittedly, I will use the remainder of my mother's gift for my own purposes. But, I'm pleased to have been able to give the lad a signifcant leg up. Given his head start, I expect that he'll do the same for future generations.

Ant colony

Pick your bat and start hitting balls.