You'll get nothing. NOTHING!!

[boxofslice]

Another 'torn from the headlines' thread from me.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/16/nroddick116.xml

It appears that former Body Shop owner, Anita Roddick gave away her vast fortune from the sale of said business to charity by the time of her death and left nothing for her children in the will. The children were aware of this before she died and fully supported their mothers decision.

I think that's a pretty decent thing to do, if I was to have children (which I don't intend to) and I were to be happily wealthy (which I intend to be) by the time of my death, I wouldn't leave anything to them. I would hope that by the time of my passing they would have found their own path to happiness and/or wealth without the help of any monies left by me. Hopefully my hypothetical offspring would agree with my decision to pass on my riches to rainforests or UFO hunts or whatever.

What's your views on this decision and wills and such?

[Mindbear]

Well, my father is a very rich man, but he's told me I won't be getting any because it's all going to his new family. I don't care really, I've never known anything but being poor. However, it'd be nice through all his cheating, lying and being a total cunt to give my mum something before he dies, she never remarried after the experience of being with my dad and in my brain, that deserves compensation.

Hang on, i'm getting a bit personal. I think it's a tricky one, you see people like Paris Hilton etc, born to money, and you can't help but feel that leaving all your hard earned cash to spoilt kids is never going to do any good. Inheritance tax takes a huge chunk of money out of anything left, to anyone, but it's hugely unfair, because if you have fuck all, you're left with bugger all, if you have lots of cash, obviously there's still going to be a huge chunk. I'm babbling, and not making sense, essentially in todays society, people getting a windfall is kind of essential to them buying a house as far as I can make out, what with getting on the housing ladder being such an impenetrable task for any person. The way this country is right now, spare money is depleting due to the housing situation, so really, perhaps leaving kids with enough for a deposit, and then giving the rest away would be a nice idea.

[Emma Raducanu]

I'd have left something for my imaginary family, even if it was just Debenhams vouchers because I'd hope they would mean as much to me as any given charity. I'd consider it less about need and more about want.

The famous and very beautiful and sexy Pam Ayers said on the One Show that her mother desrved more for all the hardwork she'd put into bringing her up etc, while her war-traumatized violent husband bullied her physically and mentally. Mother used to stand by the sinks and Pam would think 'she deserves more'. It upset her very much, so she wrote a poem about it.

So, if my family had worked hard and we'd kept in touch, I'd consider their interests and loves and try and bring them closer to them. The other £50m could go to disease and illness research.

My Grandma used to look after a lady, round the fucking clock, nearly killed herself caring for her. They'd become extremely close, the dieing lady loved Grandma, thought the world of her. And left her nothing in the will. Her lazy, no caring family shared it all between them, despite not wanting to know her in her final years. Fucking world stinks.

So if Anita decided her family didn't deserve anything, then that's okay. Her family will understand.

[Hank_Kingsley]

If my parents tried pulling that shit on me they'd be in for a world of pain.

[Looknorth]

I wonder how happy Roddick's children really were? My guess is, not 100 per cent. Just because Anita did well for herself, doesn't mean her children have either the same innate drive or live in the same climate for taking a good idea all the way. Banks are very different places these days.

Mindbear is right about inheriting money being ESSENTIAL to buying a property. I know of no-one in London who hasn't had a help with this, even with 2 professional incomes per household my friends mostly live in 1 bed flats.

I can't help thinking Anita was a bit of a fascist.

[Mindbear]

Well, there's never any need for 51 million for any human. I think if you get left money, it should be a reasonable amount, not like a lottery win, because I think it could breed bad habits. Imagine, someone gets left that, never has to work, has kids, they grow up in a household that teaches them nothing about working and earning a living and the value of money....you get pretty loathsome children.

[Looknorth]

She could have left them something. Enough for a smallholding perhaps. Chickens that lay their own eggs for e.g.

[Hank_Kingsley]

Well, there's never any need for 51 million for any human. I think if you get left money, it should be a reasonable amount, not like a lottery win, because I think it could breed bad habits. Imagine, someone gets left that, never has to work, has kids, they grow up in a household that teaches them nothing about working and earning a living and the value of money....you get pretty loathsome children.

That's some protestant work ethic bullshit right there. 'Bad Habits'?! Pschaw!

Working some douchebag 9-5, that's a bad habit. I'd love to be able to just gallivant around the world, visiting interesting places without having to slum in shit hostels and spend all my free time reading and enjoying life...rather than spending all my time making money for some other cunt.

I say bring on the bad habits, there are plenty of hard-working people who are still fuckheads. There are other ways to teach your rich offspring humility and whatnot (send them to work at an AIDs orphanage for a year or two...).

[Emma Raducanu]

It's not the protestant work ethic that is wrong, it's capitalism. Terrance Malick's New World demonstrates how a wonderful communist kibbutz can breed a lovely caring and playful environment, where working hard is for the good of the community. I don't think they even bother with wills in the beautiful jungle.

[Looknorth]

That's some protestant work ethic bullshit right there. 'Bad Habits'?! Pschaw!

Protestant work ethic? Man, that nonsense made me convert to Hinduism a long time ago.

[mitzidog]

Nowt is a bit harsh - sure no one deserves £51 million (unless perhaps they've been married to Paul McCartney for 8 years at the going rate) but it's a tough old world out there and a helping hand from family can be the ifference between comfort and hardship.

I don't know the circumstances of the young roddicks - doesn't one of them play tennis?

I've been helped out with a couple of months rent on an occasion many years ago by my parents, and if anything it taught me to be better organised with money than if they'd let me become homeless.

Perhaps there's a difference between leaving a huge fortune and leaving enough to give a bit of comfort and security to offspring.

[Mindbear]

Well of course it's different, thats what I was saying really. No one would ever need millions, but being left enough to do something good with is a great thing. I mean, I remember my mum got left a grand by an auntie, so we got a dinner table, ta auntie! What I was saying I have a problem with is extortionate amounts of money being kept in families so they can live extortionate lifestyles, I'm not saying all rich people are cunts, but do you think Jonathan Aitkins daughter is going to do a lot of good with her mounds of cash? Probably not. Whilst people keep all this cash amongst a small percentage of the population, it's taken from other places.

I think i'm just going to start going on about communism, which wasn't the intention...

[The Region Legion]

 

Imagine, someone gets left that, never has to work, has kids, they grow up in a household that teaches them nothing about working and earning a living and the value of money....you get pretty loathsome children.

An unfortunate bit of received opinion that seems to have been born of poor people having to find something that makes them better than the rich folk. As a child from a wealthy family myself, it's an opinion that I hear a surprising amount considering how insulting it is as if it's an acceptable thing to say to someone - "you don't understand how the world really is".

Why does not having to worry about money = loathsome to you? How are money and personality related? They are not. "The value of money" is a fallacy - money has only the value that you and society assign to it. So if you have 51 million and something costs 2000, it is not as valuable as it is to someone who only just makes that in a month, but the person who makes that in a month isn't better than the rich one as a result.

No doubt that having money can make people unpleasant, but so can not having money. I fail to see how money made by someone who then keeps it in the family somehow "takes" it from other people too when really they give back more than anyone through tax. Whether that tax is properly spent where it should be is a different matter (hint: it's not) but lets not put the blame on those who know how to work the system we've been dealt.

[Emma Raducanu]

I fail to see how money made by someone who then keeps it in the family somehow "takes" it from other people too when really they give back more than anyone through tax.

Unless you're called Lewis Hamilton.
Sorry, carry on

[Mindbear]

An unfortunate bit of received opinion that seems to have been born of poor people having to find something that makes them better than the rich folk. As a child from a wealthy family myself, it's an opinion that I hear a surprising amount considering how insulting it is as if it's an acceptable thing to say to someone - "you don't understand how the world really is".

Why does not having to worry about money = loathsome to you? How are money and personality related? They are not. "The value of money" is a fallacy - money has only the value that you and society assign to it. So if you have 51 million and something costs 2000, it is not as valuable as it is to someone who only just makes that in a month, but the person who makes that in a month isn't better than the rich one as a result.

No doubt that having money can make people unpleasant, but so can not having money. I fail to see how money made by someone who then keeps it in the family somehow "takes" it from other people too when really they give back more than anyone through tax. Whether that tax is properly spent where it should be is a different matter (hint: it's not) but lets not put the blame on those who know how to work the system we've been dealt.

Of course not having money can make people horrible. I remember feeling quite angry seeing my mum crying about not being able to afford the bills. Eating and stuff becomes a problem when you haven't got any money. It wasn't our fault, we were dealt a tough hand and my mum worked two jobs to try and keep us afloat. Thats something that someone, having money handed to them, will never ever experience, and I'm not saying that everyone should, but there is only so much money in a country isn't there? I don't know a huge amount, but I do know that it's held by a shockingly small percentage of the country, so therefore I would assume that money will have come from somewhere else, whilst that poor mum cleaning loos to feed her kids gets minimum wage. I'm sure she works just as hard as your moneyed family, but she wasn't quite as fortunate in her life, be it with luck, or education, or whatever. I never said that money made people loathsome. I said that people with no idea about the value of money and what it's like to have to work really hard for the nice things they have are loathsome.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Seems kind of shitty to me, your children should be your first priority. I know I'd be pissed off if I got nowt.

[Still Not George]

Why does not having to worry about money = loathsome to you? How are money and personality related? They are not.

Bullshit. I went to school with a lot of people from affluent backgrounds, and they were almost invariably shitheads. The decent human beings were the exception, not the rule. It's not about money and personality being related, its about comfort and privelege breeding a very unpleasant attitude to those "below" you. And yes, I am suggesting they considered the less affluent below them, because they fucking well did.

[mitzidog]

I get a bit cross about the inequalities of life sometimes, and I'm somewhere in the middle neither rich nor poor, I can see that it seems screamingly unjust to someone struggling to feed their family that someone inherits a stately pile just because they won the birth lotto, but equally I can see that people should look after their families first and if that's unequal then tough.

I guess that's what inheritance tax is for, to slightly address the inequalities - there are problems with it, but I can't think of a better way.

[Mindbear]

Bullshit. I went to school with a lot of people from affluent backgrounds, and they were almost invariably shitheads. The decent human beings were the exception, not the rule. It's not about money and personality being related, its about comfort and privelege breeding a very unpleasant attitude to those "below" you. And yes, I am suggesting they considered the less affluent below them, because they fucking well did.

I had the same. My father wanted to dodge some tax and avoid having to give my mum money, so he sent me to this stupid posh school where I was known as a peasant. I remember the look on my friends faces when I took them back to my house with its falling apart kitchen and threadbare sofa and mattresses on the floor instead of beds. They never came back, and I got the fucking piss ripped out of me for daring to present them with something lesser than what they were used to. I feel a lump in my throat now just remembering it.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I had some twat at school tell everyone on the school bus I lived in a "shitty council house" (he had been round a few weeks earlier). It's not a council house, but was obviously not as good as he was used to. There were as many poor twats at my school though, one of the poorest in my class strangled a girl to death after getting her pregnant, a couple more are currently in prison in Greece for cutting someone's throat, so I saw good and bad on both sides. Never been around any really affluent people though.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I dunno. I'd want to give my children the best start in life, but I wouldn't want them to be spoiled. Maybe the answer would be to make them work for their inheritance somehow. Set up an account that they only get access to if they do volunteer work or something like that.

[Mindbear]

I had some twat at school tell everyone on the school bus I lived in a "shitty council house" (he had been round a few weeks earlier). It's not a council house, but was obviously not as good as he was used to. There were as many poor twats at my school though, one of the poorest in my class strangled a girl to death after getting her pregnant, a couple more are currently in prison in Greece for cutting someone's throat, so I saw good and bad on both sides. Never been around any really affluent people though.

Thats a terrifying thing to have happened! The strangling that is, not the posh twat being mean. Christ, that must have been a horrible thing to deal with.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Thats a terrifying thing to have happened! The strangling that is, not the posh twat being mean. Christ, that must have been a horrible thing to deal with.

He was always nice to me, mind, we used to swap games and stuff. There was a thing in the paper recently about him, he got engaged to a woman while in prison, told her he was in for robbery until her dad did some research and found out what he had actually done. She broke it off, naturally (although there are some women who are into that of course).

[sirhenry]

I dunno. I'd want to give my children the best start in life, but I wouldn't want them to be spoiled. Maybe the answer would be to make them work for their inheritance somehow. Set up an account that they only get access to if they do volunteer work or something like that.

If by some miracle I got rich before I died and my kids were normal, I think I'd specify that they would only inherit when they were 25. By that point they should have learnt a few lessons about dealing with money and have a reasonable idea of what would be best to spend it on.
My dad died when I was 16 and he left me enough to buy 5,000 pints over 18 months. Totally fucked my liver and my education. Bad dead dad. Stupid me.

[Mindbear]

He was always nice to me, mind, we used to swap games and stuff. There was a thing in the paper recently about him, he got engaged to a woman while in prison, told her he was in for robbery until her dad did some research and found out what he had actually done. She broke it off, naturally (although there are some women who are into that of course).

Fucking hell! How bizarre to get engaged to someone in bloody prison, how could you possibly know enough about them to know you want to be with them day in day out for the rest of your life? Well, obviously she didn't know enough, hence the end of their engagement! I'm glad he was nice to you, but then again, you weren't likely to have sex with him, conceive, and subsequently get strangled....unless you have a secret fanny.

If by some miracle I got rich before I died and my kids were normal, I think I'd specify that they would only inherit when they were 25. By that point they should have learnt a few lessons about dealing with money and have a reasonable idea of what would be best to spend it on.
My dad died when I was 16 and he left me enough to buy 5,000 pints over 18 months. Totally fucked my liver and my education. Bad dead dad. Stupid me.

Thats hardly stupid you, how many of us remember making unwise decisions at 16, let alone doing stuff thats not strictly good for us when we're going through really really hard times. You poor bugger, thats a terrible thing to happen to anyone, let alone a 16 year old.

[Ginyard]

They get it all. But I think Sir Henry is right and there'd be enough to help them through eductaion then they can do what they want with it post-early 20s. I was a right financial cockhead prior to my mid-20s too.

[SetToStun]

Bullshit. I went to school with a lot of people from affluent backgrounds, and they were almost invariably shitheads. The decent human beings were the exception, not the rule. It's not about money and personality being related, its about comfort and privelege breeding a very unpleasant attitude to those "below" you. And yes, I am suggesting they considered the less affluent below them, because they fucking well did.

My experience was pretty much the exact opposite to yours. I was also the poor kid at my secondary school, but practically everyone there from a wealthy background (which was most of the pupils) was really normal. Yes, they had huge houses with more bedrooms than they could possibly have needed, and their parents had brand-new, very expensive cars, but they never took the piss out of my parents' tiny little bungalow or rusty old Cortina. Conversely, I did get loads of shit from the kids where I lived for being "posh" and going to "posh school" (most of their families had bigger houses and nicer cars and shit than mine). Shit which ended up with me being badly beaten up once or twice. I am aware that my experience was probably atypical, I just wanted to point out that not all rich people are cunts and neither, necessarily, are their kids.

[Emma Raducanu]

They should bring rich and poor together for a big party, where they can learn more about each other.

[El Unicornio, mang]

If the internet has showed us anything, it is that everyone, whether rich or poor, is a twat.

[Borboski]

Inheritance tax takes a huge chunk of money out of anything left, to anyone, but it's hugely unfair, because if you have fuck all, you're left with bugger all, if you have lots of cash, obviously there's still going to be a huge chunk. I'm babbling, and not making sense.

No you're not.

You pay 40% on any amount above the first tax free £312,000.

Eg, if the estate is worth £400,000 then the recipient recieves £312,000.  They are then taxed 40% on the remaining £88,000.  That's about £35,000.  So you would get £365,000 out of the £400,000.

I do not consider paying £35,000 tax to be a "huge chunk" when I then recieve £365,000.

For fucks SAKE WHY DO PEOPLE NOT GET THIS?????