Life’s Certainties

As the old saying goes, there are only two certainties in life—death and taxes, although you could probably add a third---Eleanor Burnham asking questions on train services in Wrexham.

Now it appears Gordon’s latest wheeze to fill the black hole in his budget is to combine the two and introduce a "death tax".

The rumour is Ministers are drawing up plans for a death tax of up to £20,000 per head which would be levied on the estate of the deceased. Gordon Brown refused to deny this when pressed by David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions this week.

As a Conservative, I want to see people who work hard for themselves and their families rewarded by allowing their property to pass down the generations and not punished by taxes to pay for Labour’s incompetence.