Where there's a Will

Among the many proposals for next month's budget, Rishi Sunak is apparently considering scrapping inheritance tax, the duty paid on the estate of someone who has died, which includes all property, assets and money. Currently this is set at 40% on everything above the tax-free £325,000 threshold, though for those bequeathing their home to kids or grandkids, this exclusion band rises to a cool half mil - aka. “walking-around money” in the Sunak household.

As such, the projected move stands to hit the treasury to the tune of £8 billion (enough to pay for a fair few doctors) but will put a smile on the face of the top 4% of households it stands to actually benefit (Hey, “the 4%” is better than “the 1%” I guess... :-/ ). It'd be just another cynical, self-serving and tone deaf bit of political opportunism from a flailing government who've presided over 14 years of declining public services and ever widening inequality - 2022 saw record high foodbank use simultaneously insulted by record high Porsche sales.... It's pretty unlikely there's much intersection on that venn diagram though the kind of elite-pandering move an inheritance tax cut represents will certainly see queues for the foodbank and the showroom growing together.

Mick Jagger, still rollin' stones and takin' names at 80 recently said he wouldn't sell his band's catalog of music just so his offspring of eight (and counting...) could enjoy even more privilege. On the eve of the release of their latest album, Hackney Diamonds, he hinted to press he'd probably donate his fortune to charity some day instead. “The children don't need $500 million to live well. Come on”.

Bill Gates echoed this sentiment (well, if there's such thing as a before echo) when he stated in 2018 that his children would not be seeing the lion's share of his and ex wife Melinda's $120 billion estate, concerned that it would not be in their best interests, nor those of the recipients of his charitable foundation (the biggest private charity in the world). According to the Microsoft mogul, “It’s not a favour to kids to have them have huge sums of wealth. It distorts anything they might do, creating their own path.” He conceded a “safety net” would be provided for each. At $10 million a head it might be a fraction of his worth but it's still a mighty fancy net.

Gates takes inspiration from the famous American investor and philanthropist Warren Buffet, whose many decades of business-savvy investments have made him the tenth richest person in the world. Together, he and Gates founded The Giving Pledge in 2010, a charitable endeavour which encourages wealthy people (the majority billionaires) to pledge at least 50% of their wealth to philanthropic causes. It's not binding, so the billionaires can of course backtrack when they decide they'd actually rather go to space or get a bigger yacht, but the sentiment is good for a slap on the back at a dinner party. For his part, Buffet has pledged 99% of his remaining estate, having apportioned a mere sliver to his three children. As he puts it, the responsible amount to bequeath the kids is "enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing." In the case of the Buffet's brood, that's purportedly $2 billion each via trust funds. That's the kind of “safety net” that could catch a jumbo jet.... or buy one.

The six spawn of Sting may well think he should add a “y” to his name after he publicly declared in 2014 they would not be seeing much of his nine figure fortune. His sentiments match those of Elton John, sultry chef Nigella Lawson and sweary chef Gordon Ramsey – Hard work and ambition are key to fulfilment whilst a silver spoon can be a poisoned chalice. I'm mixing metaphors here but you get the point. Screw the kids! Tell them to get a paper round.

In the case of Nicholas Puech, the 80 year old estranged heir of the Hermès family and their luxury handbag empire, he has no children to leave or rather not leave (except for $2 billion...) his vast wealth to so naturally he's in the process of adopting his 51 year old former gardener, intending to gift him more than £5 billion after his death. This isn't sitting too well with the charitable foundation he set up in 2011, the previous beneficiary of the inheritance, whose incensed board of five members consequently stands to lose the earmarked fortune to a middle aged fella with a rake. The understandably disgruntled Isocrates Foundation was established to support “public interest journalism and media organisations committed to strengthening the field of investigative journalism”. It's a shame then that they may be denied the equivalent wealth of two and a half young Buffets, since it would allow them to more readily challenge the wholly lazy implication that Puech's gardener must have been mowing his lawn real good...
... you know you were thinking it too.

So if you're mega minted but you don't have any kids or a favourite tradie to leave your accumulated loot, the obvious next choice is of course a Scots Dumpy Hen. In the case of Gigoo, one of the world's richest animals, this windfall amounts to £10 million, inherited from British millionaire publisher Miles Blackwell upon his death at just 56. Who cares if you're a practically flightless bird when you can afford to fly private? Free range all the way baby!

Of course, it's bound to be particularly galling for hungry nurses queueing outside the foodbank when a fucking chickencruises by in a new Porsche.