Things that make you go.......WTF?

[David]

I find it really distasteful too, 1061. One reason why I'm against the idea of inheritance in general. Wills always seem to bring out the worst in people.

[Pies4shaw]

No, not always. Grasping people will grasp - giving an opportunity for scum to fight over money doesn't mean they weren't scum before that.

[Jezza]

I find it really distasteful too, 1061. One reason why I'm against the idea of inheritance in general. Wills always seem to bring out the worst in people.

That's a generalisation on your behalf. Sure some people are greedy and motivated purely by someone's inheritance but most people don't give it a thought until it is presented to them which is usually after a particular person passes on.

I'm surprised by your position that you're against the notion of inheritance in general. I've always believed that the government should stay right out of someone's assets and inheritance and it should only be an issue of the common law to deal with such issues where inheritances may be contested for example for one reason or another.

[Wokko]

I find it really distasteful too, 1061. One reason why I'm against the idea of inheritance in general. Wills always seem to bring out the worst in people.

That's a generalisation on your behalf. Sure some people are greedy and motivated purely by someone's inheritance but most people don't give it a thought until it is presented to them which is usually after a particular person passes on.

I'm surprised by your position that you're against the notion of inheritance in general. I've always believed that the government should stay right out of someone's assets and inheritance and it should only be an issue of the common law to deal with such issues where inheritances may be contested for example for one reason or another.

I'm right with you there, and if the government ever tried to grab whatever wealth I had when I was about to die I'd be selling everything I had and gifting my heir or buying gold and burying it somewhere and giving them a map. There is no way I'd pay 1c of death duty or inheritance tax or allow any descendent of mine to pay it either. In fact if it came to it and there was no way out I'd burn the lot.

[David]

Jezza, I won't go into the debate again here, but I think my posts in this thread provide a decent overview of my stance. My issue is really with equality of opportunity.

http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/viewtopic.php?t=70176

Anyway, what made me go WTF: listening to ABC 774 in the car this morning and hearing a 2-minute election ad for Victorian Labor. Am I losing my mind? Since when does the ABC broadcast political advertising?

[Jezza]

Jezza, I won't go into the debate again here, but I think my posts in this thread provide a decent overview of my stance. My issue is really with equality of opportunity.

http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/viewtopic.php?t=70176

Anyway, what made me go WTF: listening to ABC 774 in the car this morning and hearing a 2-minute election ad for Victorian Labor. Am I losing my mind? Since when does the ABC broadcast political advertising?

Thanks for the link! There's probably no point debating this but I'll be interested in reading this thread you've linked in greater detail.

[Jezza]

I find it really distasteful too, 1061. One reason why I'm against the idea of inheritance in general. Wills always seem to bring out the worst in people.

That's a generalisation on your behalf. Sure some people are greedy and motivated purely by someone's inheritance but most people don't give it a thought until it is presented to them which is usually after a particular person passes on.

I'm surprised by your position that you're against the notion of inheritance in general. I've always believed that the government should stay right out of someone's assets and inheritance and it should only be an issue of the common law to deal with such issues where inheritances may be contested for example for one reason or another.

I'm right with you there, and if the government ever tried to grab whatever wealth I had when I was about to die I'd be selling everything I had and gifting my heir or buying gold and burying it somewhere and giving them a map. There is no way I'd pay 1c of death duty or inheritance tax or allow any descendent of mine to pay it either. In fact if it came to it and there was no way out I'd burn the lot.

Precisely Wokko!

What right does the government have to take someone's assets if they would rather pass it on to someone else they trust or love. That's as bad as robbing someone of their possessions.

[1061]

What right does the government have to take someone's assets if they would rather pass it on to someone else they trust or love. That's as bad as robbing someone of their possessions.

If you find yourself incapacitated and needing care in an Aged Care Facility and thanks to Julia you get to keep the family home whatever it's value. But if your assets are above the assets test not including the family home then you'll need to come up with between $200,000 and $300,000 for a bond as well as over $2000 per month for the nursing home fee's.
The Pension is no where near $2000 per month btw.

But if your assets fall under the asset test including your home the Commonwealth with pay the gap after you have paid around 75% of your pension towards what a facility will charge with no bond.

At least that's how I understand it.

[David]

Jezza, I won't go into the debate again here, but I think my posts in this thread provide a decent overview of my stance. My issue is really with equality of opportunity.

http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/viewtopic.php?t=70176

Anyway, what made me go WTF: listening to ABC 774 in the car this morning and hearing a 2-minute election ad for Victorian Labor. Am I losing my mind? Since when does the ABC broadcast political advertising?

Thanks for the link! There's probably no point debating this but I'll be interested in reading this thread you've linked in greater detail.

I don't mind debating it further, just thought this might not be the thread for it. Plus, the last thread was an epic saga and I'm not sure if there's much I haven't said on the topic. But feel free to bump it.

[Tannin]

Anyway, what made me go WTF: listening to ABC 774 in the car this morning and hearing a 2-minute election ad for Victorian Labor. Am I losing my mind? Since when does the ABC broadcast political advertising?

Since when? Since before you were born, David. The ABC has always done that. It is part of its charter, part of its very purpose - as the national broadcaster the ABC has a duty to provide citizens with information relevant to their role as citizens. Broadcasting election material from all significant parties is a part of that duty. Broadcasts go on a rota, with equal time allocated according to a fair, above-board formula, to each of the major contestants. At present, that means quite a lot of time to Labor, quite a lot of time to the Liberals, and lesser amounts of time to the Greens (the next largest party after the big two) and the Nationals. You can argue with the fine print there - should the time allocation go according to number of votes at the last election or the number of seats? Do the Nationals count as a party or are they just part of the Liberal coalition? Where do you draw the line and say a given party is too small to get any time? - but the general thrust of the policy is uncontroversial, supported by just about everyone, and has been in existence for many years.

[David]

I just have to say I'm really surprised. Had no idea this was the done thing. Do the parties pay for this airtime? How does that square with the ABC's no advertising and political impartiality policies?

To me, "providing information" would seem to entail everything the ABC usually does: providing disinterested news, current affairs, entertainment, interviews and commentary. I'm not sure where partisan advertisements fit into that in principle. Certainly, it's not like we don't get enough election propaganda everywhere else.

Sorry for being such a n00b about this, but I'm still trying to get my head around it. Can these ads just be the same ones played on the commercial stations, or do they need to abide by certain restrictions?

I grew up listening to ABC radio, so I'm surprised I've never noticed these ads before. Perhaps I just took them for granted.

[Morrigu]

Wills always seem to bring out the worst in people.

Oh many many many don't wait for the Will - family members trying to out jostle each other arguing about who gets what across the bed or removing items of " value" from dying or immediately deceased family members is one of the most disgusting things I have seen in my career - and unfortunately it wasn't uncommon

I have thrown a lot of "loving" family members out of my ward for this distasteful behaviour - probably be reported and in trouble these days!

[Tannin]

Oh, there is no money involved. Cast your mind back to, say, the 1948. There was no TV, no Internet, and most political campaigning took the form of town-hall meetings where the candidates would get up and speak for a while, dealing with interjections from the audience and perhaps answering questions. Clearly, the national broadcaster had a duty to help the nation's leaders and would-be leaders communicate with citizens, and a duty to help citizens hear from their leaders, and it did this by broadcasting their speeches, taking care to remain scrupulously fair by providing equal time to each.

(I don't know when this policy began, it's certainly been around for as long as I can remember and I was born in the 1950s. I imagine that it began at about the same time as radio itself, which was close to 100 years ago, but that's only a guess.)

I'm not aware of any special restrictions on the ABC political content, though it would have to abide by the fairly strict restrictions which apply to all political advertising. Up until a decade or two ago, it always took the form of a short talk or speech by the party leader or a senior minister. I can vaguely remember the first time I heard a scripted, studio-produced ad using actors rather than the till-then normal short speech. I didn't much care for that, but I guess the view was taken that this five minute block of air-time was earmarked for (e.g.) the Liberal Party and that it would be a partisan interference with their right of free speech to arbitraily censor the form of their content.

Remember, one of the main reasons the ABC exists is to foster communication about matters of interest and concern for the benefit of citizens and the nation. It isn't just allowed to include political content (through these party spots, news bulletins, current affairs programmes and so on) but required to do so. That's its job.

Remember, these broadcast spots are available to all parties and are assigned in a scrupulously fair way as regards number and timeslot. They are of particular value to parties (like your beloved Greens or for that matter the DLP) who have significant public support but little money to buy saturation commercial time with. Many people would never hear the Greens' message or the DLP message were it not for the ABC election material broadcasts. In short, they are there to serve, and in practice do serve, the process of democracy.

(Of course, your average moron listens to 3AW instead, so they mostly go unheard, but what can you do?)

[think positive]

ill enter that debate with you again David,

but ill wait a while. when its your money, that you want to leave your kids, or its your inheritance, which im assuming you will be handing over to the government??

as for inheritance tax, the money hasd already been taxed once. that's enough.

gotta love people trying to give other peoples money away!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erSJGrpfnOI

signed: AN ANT!!

[Tannin]

as for inheritance tax, the money has already been taxed once. that's enough.

If that was true, I'd agree with you. But in the main, it's just plain false. You see, the reality is that most inherited money - and pretty much all large lumps of inherited money, which is the only sort under discussion 'coz everyone agrees that small amounts should not be subject to an inheritance tax - has not had tax paid on it.

Large sums come overwhelmingly from three sources:

1: Superannuation contributions which are largely tax-free for wealthy people (taxed at only 15%, i.e., less than half what they are supposed to pay on normal income) but not tax-free for low-income people (taxed at 15% which is more than they normally should have to pay on their very low incomes - how is that fair?)

2: Investment proceeds of funds hidden away in superannuation accounts where they are largely tax-free. In theory, they are taxed at that same heavily discounted 15% rate, but only if you are terminally stupid and/or too poor to pay even a semi-bright accountant and even then only until you can switch your fund over to "pension mode" which is 100% tax-free and applies when your fund is at its largest and should be paying the most tax. In practice, if you are well-off your super is pretty close to tax free even before you reach pension mode because there are any number of lurks which even the poorest accountant can find for you. Mostly they involve either avoiding taking income from the fund as income and instead taking it as "capital gain", which gives you a 50% discount on your already heavily-discounted 15% tax rate, or else delaying recognition of that capital gain until you can switch into pension mode and pay 0.0% tax on it. So you wind up paying, on average, around 5% tax on your actual income instead of the 30-something percent poorer people pay.

3: Business and investment income, which by a bewildering variety of clever accounting tricks, pays very little tax. Leaving aside all the exotic and complicated overseas tricks the giant corporations and very wealthy people use, most of the tax-dodge tricks are based on the simple, easy-to-apply basics of switching income (taxable) into capital gain (50% untaxed); income switching (redirecting income away from yourself and into the account of someone else (usually in your family) who pays less tax or no tax on it); negative gearing (an unfair but perfectly legal trick which lets you avoid paying tax on your normal income, provided of course that you are wealthy enough to take advantage of it); and fringe benefit abuse (redirecting your income into "necessary business expenses" which "just happen" to provide you with the benefit of that income but without any tax on it).