(Edit: In my last comment when I said “we live” it was meant to say “we lived”, it’s my parents house, obviously, and I haven’t lived there since my student days, which is almost 8 years ago now. Sorry for any confusion.)

My parents paid taxes, never claimed benefits (NTTAWT) and are looking at an IHT bill of £400,000, even with the likely costs of retirement. £1.6m invested wisely can give them a fantastic standard of living without reducing the value of their estate, and incidentally, the house is all but paid off (so the whole “only equity is calculated” point is moot in our case). Trust me, my parents aren’t rich, we live in a standard four bedroom semi in Brent (not a plush mansion in Surrey) and my parents fanciest car has been a Toyota Avensis (oh the luxury).

Even if we may statistically be in that “wealthiest 2%” bracket, it sure as hell hasn’t felt like it. Maybe the lesson is that we should’ve spent the money while it was coming in instead of saving it up for the future?

It was hilarious how steamed up the mainstream press got about the 50% tax rate (presumably most editors will have to pay it) – only to find it was wildly popular in spite of their ranting & raving.