Under Ireland’s current inheritance tax model, any gifts or inheritance up to a certain threshold are taxed at 33%.
However, some have argued that this system is discriminatory.
Financial advisor and analyst Karl Deeter said, “it’s a tax on grief”.
“Someone dies and next of all, the Government are coming in to take all your stuff – it's silly,” he told The Hard Shoulder.
“I think it punishes hard work.
“People build over a lifetime, they work, they save, they sacrifice; I don’t think it should be taken away at the end.
“It’s effectively double taxation because it also is taxing things that have already been taxed.”
Mother giving her daugther pocket money. Alamy.comMr Deeter said the system should be scrapped and instead replaced with property taxes and taxes on assets and wealth.
“We know that the taxation of movement of assets between two loved ones is wrong,” he said.
“The reason you know it is because there is no limit between two people in a married couple; that is known, it’s accepted.
“But suddenly the Government wants to jump in and take all your stuff when it’s going to a child who you love just as much.”
'Scrap taxes elsewhere'
However, Editor with The Currency Thomas Hubert said he thinks it should be the exact opposite.
“Just scrap taxes somewhere else and tax inheritance, because that’s really something you get that you haven’t earned yourself,” he said.
“You’ve done nothing to deserve it, really; it’s all based on luck, on whether you’re born to parents who did well or not.
“I’m working at the moment, paying a lot of tax on my income – I'd rather pay less now and pay more when, hopefully as late as possible, I inherit from my parents.
“That will actually just be a bonus for my pension plan at that stage.”
According to Mr Hubert, “there’s too much tax on labour”.
“Maybe if more of that tax was directed towards things that are less painful to society like inheritance, that would be better,” he said.
Main image: A person holds and counts budget money. Image: imageBROKER.com GmbH & Co. KG / Alamy
