Death and taxes

Sorry for the cliched title, but I wanted to talk about things that are inevitable facts of life.  Death, taxes, old age, buttered side down toast dropping seem to top the list of the most worrisome.

Something else that will never change is politics.  Whatever party or parties are in power, election promises and campaigns remain, shall we say, subject to later interpretation.

A beautiful example of this was reported in yesterday’s press (see here for the Telegraph’s take) .  

During the election campaign Andrew Lansley, the new Health Secretary, attacked Labour plans to force people to provide money towards care whether they needed it or not.  This was emotively referred to as  Labour’s “death tax” with some of those famed Tory posters stating “Gordon Brown wants £20,000 when you die.”

We now learn that since coming into power Mr Lansley has set up a commission to report on how care for the elderly will be paid for in the future and that one of the options for them to consider is a compulsory levy.  Sound familiar?

There is no getting around the need for some kind of funding solution since the deficit for funding care for the elderly is expected to reach £6 billion by 2020, however the best and fairest route towards this remains unclear.  What seems clear to me is that it would be inequitable for someone to have to pay for care which they never intend to take up.

It is still early days for this story since the Commission has a while still before it reports, but we will report in the future once there is more detail.

If you would like to discuss care home planning or tax planning for retirement, please contact me on iain.donaldson@mablaw.com or on 01923 202020.