“‘Pupil poverty’ pressure on school cash”

Mar 20, 2019 | Tax

Last year, the UN said that ‘the UK government is in a state of denial about the impact of austerity on the poor’. Funnily enough, the government ‘completely disagreed’ that there is a problem. Now teachers are telling us that ‘pupil poverty has increased significantly’ with one headteacher saying ‘when schools have to buy shoes for children to wear to school on a regular basis, we must have a problem.’ They can’t all be rabid leftie Remainers, can they? This week’s education minister Damien Hinds has responded by promising more support and counselling for teachers suffering from stress. Unbelievable.

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“HMRC scraps plans to tax pensions after death”

“HMRC scraps plans to tax pensions after death”

A couple of other Statement Highlights (in my world, anyway). A welcome ‘nothing happened’ on the treatment of pensions on death. They were never going to be liable to IHT (too complicated with trusts and trust law) but there was talk of making them income-taxable on the recipients at whatever age you die.

“Raising IHT threshold could cost government £6bn”

“Raising IHT threshold could cost government £6bn”

Well, the lesson of this week in politics must be to expect the unexpected. Or, alternative interpretation, to expect more of the same. The speculation on the future of Inheritance Tax has switched from abolition to a rise in the amount of wealth you can have before the 40% payment hits.