{"id":526097,"date":"2026-06-30T16:26:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T16:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/526097\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T16:26:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T16:26:22","slug":"very-few-pay-economist-says-inheritance-tax-cut-benefits-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/526097\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Very few pay’: Economist says inheritance tax cut benefits rich"},"content":{"rendered":"

An economist has argued that any reduction in inheritance tax or change to the thresholds would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Currently, Capital Acquisitions Tax is charged at 33% on any inheritance a person receives from their parents larger than \u20ac400,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

People are eligible to pay CAT on any inheritance they receive from a grandparent, aunt, uncle<\/a>, brother or sister worth more than \u20ac40,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If a person receives an inheritance from someone they are not related to, they pay CAT on any sum larger than \u20ac20,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The thresholds for CAT were raised in Budget 2026<\/a> and both Government parties have indictaed an interest in raising them further next year as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who pays?<\/p>\n

As property values continue to rise, more and more people will pay CAT when they inherit the family home they grew up in<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, Assistant Professor in Economics at Trinity Barra Roantree noted that despite an increase in house prices over recent years<\/a>, \u201cvery few people\u201d actually pay inheritance tax.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cVery few of those houses [in the most expensive parts of Dublin] are actually left to a single child because there’s very few single kids for that generation,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s going to become a more important thing in maybe 30-40 years down the line, but at the moment that’s not really that substantive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"26\/11\/2025 Homes in Ranelagh. Picture by: Sasko Lazarov RollingNews.ie.<\/p>\n

Professor Roantree continued that while many people will inherit money from their families, the majority will not be eligible for CAT.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCSO data show that of those who are kind of old enough to have received inheritance, the person in the middle has received \u20ac100,000 over their lifetime,\u201d he said,\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas the threshold for if you’re receiving a gift or inheritance from your parents over your lifetime is \u20ac400,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, there really are very few people who pay inheritance tax.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEstimates I’ve done suggest it’s much less than 10% of the entire population will ever pay what we call inheritance tax over their lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Roantree added that inheritance tax comes back to \u201cbasic ideas of what we think is fair and not\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy should it be that someone who’s receiving a large amount of money, why should you pay no tax on that?\u201d he asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas if you go out and you work, you would have to pay tax at a higher rate on that, a much higher effective rate on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Main image: An elderly pensioner holding leather wallet with money in it. Picture by: Alamy.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An economist has argued that any reduction in inheritance tax or change to the thresholds would overwhelmingly benefit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,176,61,60,174,175],"class_list":["post-526097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}