Gordon Brown's Death Tax

A £20,000 death tax would leave many families with almost nothing to pass on to their children - we must fight against these plans.

Gordon Brown needs to come clean with the public and say how he will fund his planned National Care Service. He set out three options in a government report last year. If we don’t fight against these plans then we will pay a heavy price.

The third option, which is the one Labour Health Secretary, Andy Burnham has suggested he favours, involves a death tax of up to £20,000 per head to fund the costs of care. It has come to light that the Government has been using public money to conduct polling to find out what people think of their ‘death tax’ option.

A £20,000 death tax would leave many families with almost nothing to pass on to their children. It is in effect a 100 per cent inheritance tax for people with modest assets.

Instead, David Cameron’s Conservatives want to help people in old age. We want to make social care better by helping people stay in their own homes for longer and by ending the situation where people are left with no choice but to sell their home to pay for social care.

We will offer people the chance, should they want to, to pay a one off fee of £8,000 to cover the cost of residential care in old age. Unlike Labour’s death tax, this is a voluntary scheme. No one will need to lose their home to pay for the cost of care.

We all know Gordon Brown has a track record of saying ‘no new taxes’ before and election, and then raising them by stealth after it. So the choice at the election could not be clearer. A death tax under Labour. Help to protect your home with David Cameron’s Conservatives.