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Lewis Goodall's bold suggestion to hike inheritance tax up to 100% in order to cut income tax has wound a lot of people up.
As well as thousands of angry replies on Twitter, he's attracted the ire of LBC colleague Iain Dale. Accusing Lewis of advocating for 'legalised robbery,' Iain makes a passionate argument against increasing inheritance tax.
Which side do you fall on?
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0:00
I lose my routine
0:02
Comrades, this is a message from the Politburo. Commissar Goodall speaking here from Leicester Square, Oblast
0:08
Pig production, Pig Iron Production is up again. And I'm delighted to give you our latest missive here from the Presidium
0:15
where we are in favour of 100% inheritance tax, compulsory nationalisation of all land
0:21
and really winding all right-wing Twitter up. Yes, this was the story that we did yesterday
0:26
where I just posited just an idea that maybe at a time of profound intergenerational unfairness
0:33
at a time when the government was desperately searching for new tax revenue, at a moment actually
0:40
and this is the bit that really, really I found curious, at a moment where actually I made an argument
0:45
which was to say that we should be reducing taxes on everybody
0:49
so they would have more money in their pockets, on their income, on the work that they're doing day to day
0:55
and that should be funded by an increase, and I was being a bit provocative by saying 100%
0:59
but I said I wouldn't mind if it was 100%, impractical, I appreciate, but I wouldn't mind at all if it was 60%, 70%
1:05
80% inheritance tax, taxing those big windfalls from that huge property boom
1:10
that we've had over the last 40, 50 years to fund tax cuts for people to earn more money
1:16
and keep it in their pockets. I thought this was a right-wing argument, a liberal argument
1:20
a liberal argument steeped in the great heroes of British liberalism. John Stuart Mill, Thomas Paine, Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in the 19th century
1:30
who thought that inheritance taxes were a good idea because it made children who received inheritance indolent and lazy
1:38
And then I looked at my Twitter inbox. And I'm afraid I cannot share, dear LBC listener, I cannot share in any great detail the contents of that
1:48
because I will be taken off the air by Ofcom for blaspheming and bad language in about 12 seconds flat
1:54
but just to give you an idea when you can fill in the blanks. You've been made to look like a clown
1:59
You sad, pathetic little man. Lewis, you're an absolute tit. You are an effing idiot, you lad
2:05
You're the weak one. Lewis, what planet are you on with inheritance
2:09
Proper effing idiot you are. Dumb as F. W word. Stupid C word
2:14
You're an effing grub. You don't have kids, right? You're a homosexual loser
2:18
Communist. I feel sorry for your mum. Thick C. Commie P. E, you little entitled idiots, communist, communist, communist, proper tosser you are
2:28
Well, I'd agree with that. But anyway, on and on and on it goes. And that's just, and those are some of the nicer ones, ladies and gentlemen
2:36
And this has got me thinking, this has got me thinking, what on earth is all this about
2:41
How sensitive the online right has become to a different sort of idea
2:46
One that I do not understand how it could be quite so controversial
2:50
And indeed, even my own LBC colleague here, Ian Dale, was rather irritated by my suggestion
2:56
And he actually wanted me to come on his show last night. Unfortunately, I had other plans, so I couldn't do so
3:01
But he nonetheless decided to castigate me, dear Ian, for my idea
3:05
Here is an opening section from his show last night, where he took me to task for the idea of a 100% inheritance tax
3:12
I can't express how angry I am at that kind of attitude
3:16
he uses words like progressive and radical which is what the left always do when what they mean
3:23
is higher taxes that they have no original thought in their heads apart from putting up taxes and taking hard money off people It doesn matter whether you leaving
3:38
£800,000 to your kids or whoever you decide to leave it to. You have earned that money
3:44
you've paid tax on that money already and now Lewis wants to take the whole lot off you
3:50
I think it's an outrageous suggestion the fact that inheritance tax is already 40% over what 325,000 I think it is
4:00
I mean that is criminal enough but I want to put it up to 100
4:04
I mean that is legalised robbery and if that is the way that the left is thinking in this country
4:11
then God help us all is all I can say because their answer to everything is to tax people
4:18
now I don't object to paying taxes I think we all have a duty to pay taxes
4:22
That is the way that government works. But to pretend that the government can spend your hard-earned money
4:28
that you've worked all your life to have, the thought that the government can spend that money
4:35
better than your kids can is for the birds. And even if they could, they shouldn't have a right to
4:44
I mean, have we lost all sense of perspective on this? in the i mean effectively what they want to see is the government becoming effectively the quasi
4:55
parent to everybody controlling everything where individuals don't have a say in anything now okay
5:03
like lewis i'm exaggerating to make a point but i think it is an absolutely criminal idea
5:10
that people's money should be taken off them in this way um he he says we have an aristocracy
5:17
of wealth. Again, a trite phrase, but what does it actually mean? What it means is he wants to
5:23
penalise people who've been successful. And accumulating wealth, generally, you've done something to do that. Yes, there are some people who just do it by betting on the stock exchange
5:33
or whatever, but most people, if they accumulate wealth, they do it through their own endeavours
5:39
They take risks, they form companies, they employ people, they pay corporation tax
5:44
They pay income tax. They pay VAT. They pay council tax. They pay all of these taxes throughout their life
5:50
And then they're expected to forfeit any wealth that they've earned and not pass it on to their children
5:56
What kind of country is that? That's becoming Venezuela. That's becoming like Cuba. I don't want to live in a country like that
6:04
Now, I have the hugest respect for Lewis. I really, really do. If I listen to the newsagents, he has got his finger on the pulse of British politics
6:14
in a way that I think most political commentators don't. And I'm always interested to hear his interpretation of events
6:21
And I get that he admitted he's kind of exaggerating to make a point. But the very fact that he's even suggested this now
6:27
it will put it into a lot of people's heads. Oh yeah, well that's quite reasonable. Let's punish the rich
6:33
Does he not remember the wise words of Abraham Lincoln? You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer
6:41
some warm words there from my ever respectful colleague ian dale uh who uh i think it's fair
6:46
to say didn't love my idea yesterday uh and before i say what i'm about to say likewise i have a huge
6:52
amount of respect for ian but you know what coming don you where to begin with that ian i almost wish i cancelled my dinner plan just so you hadn been able to splurge that absolute nonsense all last night making taking
7:04
on an argument i did not even make not this is so meta isn't it we're just making sort of lbc
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content but getting lbc content where to begin um you've earned that money says ian therefore you
7:14
have the right to do what you like with it well so have i so have i on my income so have you on
7:18
your income. I can say that about your income tax. You say that the government has no right
7:24
to tax my or his wealth or the inheritance. Why can I not say that about income? What's the
7:31
difference? It's just a different priority. And my priority is to incentivise work, not the right
7:38
to inherit something. Ian says it's legalised robbery. Why isn't all tax then legalised robbery
7:45
Why is ink tax on income somehow superior to tax on inheritance
7:50
I didn't hear a single moral or conceptual argument to flesh that out
7:55
If this is the way the left is thinking, he said, God help us. Well, from the reaction to this over the last 24 hours
8:01
I would say the problem is not that this is what the left is thinking. I never claimed that it was
8:05
I actually don't think it's a left-wing idea. I think it's quite a right-wing idea in lots of ways. Reducing tax on income to incentivise work
8:13
not incentivising handouts, but Ian says that the problem, if that's what the left is thinking
8:18
God help us, the problem is the right isn't thinking. The right isn't thinking at all
8:23
They're just dismissing something entirely out of hand without even actually thinking about whether
8:27
it fits into their wider ideology. Penalise people, Ian says, who have been successful
8:33
The idea would penalise people who've been successful? No. My idea would be to incentivise
8:38
people who are successful, who are creating jobs in the real economy, who are creating businesses
8:44
by reducing tax on work and labour. My idea is to penalise people who receive a windfall for doing
8:52
nothing to deserve it, nothing of their own. They just expect to inherit. How is that penalising
9:00
someone who has been successful? That's penalising someone who has done nothing to deserve something
9:07
Most people, he says, who accumulate wealth do so through their own endeavours
9:11
I agree. And I want to incentivise that. I want a wealth-generating economy
9:15
I want a dynamic economy. I actually think this is the idea that helps save capitalism, not destroy it
9:22
But my point is precisely that. Heatleyan says, most people who accumulate wealth do so through their own endeavours
9:29
My idea targets people who have done nothing through their own endeavours
9:33
who are just expecting to inherit, who have a windfall. They have not generated the wealth
9:41
They are the recipient of the wealth. That is the difference. And he says, what kind of country is that
9:47
Well, I'll tell you, Ian. It's the country we had. It's Britain. It's not Venezuela
9:51
It's Britain in the 1920s when we'd introduced estate duties to pay for the First World War
9:55
It's the Britain we had in the 1950s and 1960s when we paid for the Second World War
9:59
These are not radical ideas. These are old ideas. It is simply that too much of British politics
10:07
dismisses them out of hand without really thinking about them. I would go back to Andrew Carnegie
10:13
the great 19th century entrepreneur, at one time the richest man in the world in the 19th century
10:19
What did he say about inheritance tax? He said, Of all forms of taxation this seems the wisest Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives would be compelled to distribute their hoards during their lives for the public good
10:33
By taxing estates heavily at death, the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life
10:40
And he went on saying that the inheritance was bad for the parent and the child
10:44
The parent who leaves his son enormous wealth usually deadens the talents and energies of the son
10:50
tempts him to lead a less useful and less worthy life than he otherwise would
10:55
I would as soon as leave to my son a curse as the almighty dollar
11:01
Couldn't have put it better myself. And the fact of the matter is, is that I was being provocative
11:06
of course, yesterday when I was talking about 100% inheritance tax, I don't think that's very practical. But as I said, I wouldn't mind it
11:12
And myself, because I believe that people should rise and fall by their own endeavours
11:16
not what someone did three or four generations ago. and we are living in a deeply unequal society
11:24
Ian asked, what do I mean by an aristocracy of wealth? Saying it's a trite phrase. It's not a trite phrase at all
11:28
It's the reality of 21st century Britain and indeed the United States
11:33
What do I mean by an aristocracy of wealth? I'm in a society where the richest 10% of households own 45% of the wealth
11:40
Where the poorest 50% own less than 10% of the wealth. I mean a society where over 100 billion is being passed down in inheritances and gifts each single year, where over 50% of UK wealth is now held by the over 55s, meaning younger generations are increasingly reliant on inheritance rather than savings
12:00
Savings they cannot build up because they are forced into higher and higher rate tax bans, partly because our tax system is completely skewed
12:08
Our tax system is favoured and is geared towards older, richer people getting to do whatever they like because they think that they've been completely generated their wealth completely single handedly
12:20
Well, they haven't. They've been part of an environment and a country which has given them a great deal
12:24
It's infrastructure. It's schooling. It's health system. All of the things that a 21st century democracy provides
12:32
It has to be paid for. And also you have to have a sense of intergenerational equity
12:37
And I'm sorry, but intergenerational equity cannot just mean that you get to decide to give all your money to your kid when you die
12:44
Because you know what? If you believe that, you cannot believe in a meritocracy
12:48
You cannot believe in equality of opportunity because what you end up with is huge pockets of wealth
12:53
being distributed to fewer and fewer people and everybody else cannot keep up. No matter how
12:58
clever you are, no matter how smart you are, no matter how hard you work, you will never ever be
13:02
able to keep up with the top. Thomas Piketty, the French economist, wrote about this 10 years ago
13:08
in 2014 in his book Capital. And his point was then, as it is now, and it's got worse since
13:14
that the early 21st century economy is looking more and more like the 19th century economy
13:18
It is looking like we've got a world where capital just begets capital, wealth begets wealth and wealth and wealth
13:24
and more of the economy is dedicated to wealth and the extension of that wealth rather than income
13:30
And the workers, people without wealth, cannot catch up. That is what I'm saying and what I'm trying to draw attention to
13:38
Now, it's perfectly fine if you have a different point of view, and I can understand that
13:41
What I cannot understand, I must say, is the, I would say, certainly the invective and the strength of feeling about it
13:52
But maybe I'm just weird and odd and that's absolutely fine, I don't mind. What do you think? What am I missing here
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