In the UK, inheritance tax starts at around £325k - which is basically a little bit above the average house price. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/inheritancetax/intro/

In the UK, inheritance tax starts at around £325k - which is basically a little bit above the average house price. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/inheritancetax/intro/basics.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/inheritancetax/intro/basics.htm You can get around it by 'gifting' things to your kids, as long as you then don't die for 7 years after etc etc. On your last point, it certainly does exist. What I think happens is people like me don't bother trying so hard, because I'll be damned if I'm going to give the government more money. However, people who are already making much more than me, just hire a good accountant to 'make the problem go away' - eg register offshore companies etc etc Are you seriously saying, that when the UK government had a higher tax rate of 97% in the 60s/70s, you would have been more than happy to do that extra overtime work, and would have gladly received your 3%??? Crazy Anything over 49% is slavery, and will end up crippling the country rather than raising more tax revenue. Which is why it was absolutely right and proper that the current government reduced the top rate from 50% to 45%.