Re-wilding

[BigShot]

Chips, I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I thought you wanted to (personally) force people off their land. I was aware that your pipedream accumulation of land would be through open market purchase, not through clearance or compulsary purchase. I do like the fact you'd be comitted enough to work and get that much money with the sole intention of buying land to re-wild and put into public trust (presumably something like National Trust). If you can do it - great. There are still all the logistical problems with re-wilding and the issue of suitable woodland taking probably hundreds of years to mature (not an issue when you're in for the generations-long game as you describe)


The other issue is the one I find contentious.
While you're right that it would be nice if everyone could have a "good start" in life through supportive parents who house and feed them while young and support them financially through their schooling so they may study to the best of their ability; the problem comes when you get to the part "and then be turfed out on their ear" (not your exact words of course - more my deliberately worded paraphrase - haha).

So, let's say the only child of a wealthy couple reaches the age of 17 when his parents die. How will he be supported through university? In some cases the inheritence he gets will support him, maybe the sale of the house, maybe the ongoing income the land provides through sport hunting, fishing or similar (of course, those latter examples apply only to the landed sort, but a business in construction or a family run shop would be an equivalent for non-landed estates - something your 100% ingeritence tax would also forcibly remove from them at the death of the title holder). Without that continued income providing for them, the support they would have had can not continue, thus harshly disadvantaging them against others.

So let's leave the land issue at the minute, and look at a family run hardware shop. Grandad has set the business up and struggled, Dad has taken it over and turned it into something good and Son works there whenever he can, learning the ropes of the business and preparing to take it over. He's got some good ideas about how to make it really work. Unfortunately, before his Dad dies, the incumbent government at the time brings in a 100% inheritance tax with a £5000 payoff after a minister reads your posts in this threads and decides it is a fantastic idea. Now the work Son has put in is voided, the business put together by Grandad, Dad and partly by Son is sold off to the highest bidder. There's no way Son can buy it, all the work he put in is now gone. People who were studying to become brokers or teachers are fine - but the system you suggest wouldn't affect those professions anyway. The system you suggest would not only penalise landed folk, but would also penalise people inclined to make small businesses like the theoretical GD&S Hardware described above.

All of that aside, whichever angle you view this from, I can't help but think your ideas for 100% inheritence tax fly completely in the facec of human nature. It is not human nature to give your offspring a supporting home to allow them to study all they need to without financial pressure, before they are cut loose to fend completely for themselves with no help at all (presumably your proposal would also prevent parent giving anything to their offspirng post-graduation in order to avoid the obvious loophole to the "inheritence" nature of your ideas, and would exclude offspring from purchasing in even the pre-death sale of a business for the same reason).
It is human nature to help your offspring as much as possible, and that includes building something up to pass onto them when you die.

Your ideas still prevent the passing on of heirlooms too. You can have Grandad's shotgun if it's a cheap rattly old beater and its value is knocked off the £5000 allowance, but if it is a master crafted work of art that's as accurate as any ever made and valued at £20,000, it will be sold and you'll get the same £5000 you would have got anyway.
Ditto for Granny's engagement ring or diamond brooch. Ditto for the Antique car you helped your Dad restore over 15 years of happy weekends getting oily and skinning knuckles in the garage.

I find the 100% inheritence tax idea both cold hearted and fundamentally flawed, not least in the light of human nature or the almost unbelievable restrictions it would put on every level of a person's life.

I also largely agree with the comments made by Mr Adoby and also by Doc - Although I'd be curious to know if there were any great non-nomadic examples of cultures that don't have a concept of "owned" land. It strikes me that once a population become settled and move into things like division of labour and so on - ownership of land becomes much more prevalent.

Silvergirl - some interesting quotes you've included there. I wonder how long the land will remain unexposed to public sale though. If what Doc says is correct, and estates often lose money in maintaining their land, it is only a matter of time until the money runs out and the land becomes available. If the last spend they make is to plant native sapling all over it and get the re-wilding ball rolling, then it would need to stay in trust in order to be protected from bulldozing for farming, mineral exploitation and so on... If not and they hang on to the last minute, it will come up for public sale wherupon someone else who has worked hard will by some or all of it and do with it as they see fit, or it will be bought by a trust and run as a natural reserve.

Either way I can't see the 100% tax helping matters.


Oh and thanks - no need for insults though - it's not like they really achieve anything worth achieving. As much as I disagree with you, and as much as I'm not going to go on much longer with this as internet debate wears me out these days, it's nice to be able to have a bit of respectful discourse like this from time to time...
You eejit.
Haha. Sorry - I couldn't resist.

 

[Chips]

Chips.

I think there are a few minor wrinkles on your plan. Sympathic idea otherwise, but perhaps not quite ready for the harsh reality...

Suppose that you get the 100% inheritence tax. And the ban to use trust funds or other legal constructs to pass stuff on to the next generation. And further suppose you buy a lot of estates later in your life and starts to rewild them.

Since you are unable to pass your property on, especially(?) as direct land ownership but also indirectly via a trust fund and similar schemes, then all your land will go to the government when you die. Remember that 100% inheretence tax? If you or the government decides to sell it, then it should be on the open market to ensure a fair price.

So all those newly planted trees and sappling may very well be bulldozed away to make room for housing projects, supermalls and strip mining. How old are you? And just when in your life did you intend to start rewilding in a large scale?

If you find some way to prevent this 100% inheritence tax, and ensure that future generations inherit and safeguard your achivement in rewilding, what is there to stop others to use the same methods for their own purposes?

You'd need some very specific laws that only allows inheritence when it is in the purpose of rewilding? Or how else do you mean to make this possible? Should just you have some smart way of passing your inheritance and impose your will on to the coming generations, without taxing 100% as the rest of the people would have to? And even without these taxes, how do you intend to make sure that the land remains wild?

To create a private company to manage the rewilding project is just another weaker form of trust fond. As the owner(s) die the ownership goes to 100% inheritence taxes, remember?

The way to go should be to make it worth something to allow public access. For instance landowners who restrict public access should be exempt from all goverment and EU subsidies and projects. And those that allow or even encourage public access could get paid for it and perhaps recieve tax benefits. Perhaps you could even pay landowners enough to make them want to rewild on their own?

A.

I said I would close loopholes on trusts which allow familys to keep there land passing down without paying inheritance tax.

I would not ban trusts from being given property provided it is not just used to keep the family home passed down, or otherwise bypass inheritance tax. The trusts would probably be charitable. I would plan on creating a trust (probably actually a charity would be more appropriate) dedicated to rewilding, and I would rewild my area of land, then donate it to the trust/charity. There would be nothing to prevent others donating property to other trusts/charities, provided that these trusts/charities are not just setup so that the owners offspring get a rent free living in the house. I do not intend on passing the land onto my offspring.


The way to ensure the land remains wild, would be similar to the restrictions you have in converting certain churches to pubs. I am not a lawyer, so I do not know the exact specifics of this.


Public access is allowed in scotland's wilder areas, anyone who restricts this should be punished severely, I agree.

Although there have been access is issues in the past, an awful lot of estate owners have been pretty good stewards of the land they own. As I said, they often lose money. Grouse moorland is a rare habitat and whatever your views on shooting, it has been a good thing for the grouse.

Estate owners, in my experience, are pretty dreadful stewards of the land they own. Grouse moorland is not rare in Scotland. It may be good for the grouse, but every other species suffers. Hare are near exterminated, foxes, rabbits, anything like that will be shot so they can get more grouse. And every bird of prey they can find is killed, if they think they can get away with it that is. They encourage a monoculture of heather, plus grouse and deer for shooting. Trees cannot grow because of the massive deer populations.

 

[Doc]

Three quarters of the worlds heather moorlands are in the UK - in worldwide terms it is an exceedingly rare habitat, and many grouse moorlands here are subject to protection in one form or another.

I accept that that there is controversy over whether managing moorland for grouse is overall a good thing or not - like most management it is good for some species (not just grouse) and less good for others. The whole point of this thread is that I would like to see some of the highlands re-wilded, and no longer subject to management. This might involve some heather moorland becoming forest. But I would not like to see all our heather moorland disappear.

I never thought I would find myself defending the big landowners but at the end of the day, the reason re-wilding is suggested for the highlands is that it is seen as the least-damaged land in the UK. Of course, landowners vary, and I would like to see more land run by the likes of the John Muir Trust than bought and sold as a playboy's plaything.

I accept I may be biased as on the estate I know best there is certainly no illegal killing of raptors, nor was there any restriction on public access even before the land reform act. There are also very high numbers of hares. Predator control is practised legally and never to the point of total extermination. Maybe not all estates are as well run, but its unfair to accuse all gamekeepers of malpractice.

I don't actually think there is too much disagreement here. Yes, a lot of the highlands are run as sporting estates. This is because it is one of the few ways the land can generate income, and despite this the estate wil probably runs a net loss. Other land uses such as commercial forestry, sheep farming, ski centres and wind farms are probably more damaging. Of all of these, under the current system, the best practical achievable option is the sporting estate with free access to the public. But a far, far better choice would be to bring some large areas of land into public or charity ownership, with a long term plan for ecological restoration. But that means changing the system.