An 87-year-old woman from Lemiers in Limburg who owned substantial real estate in nearby Vaals has left most of it to her tenants in her will.
According to the Telegraaf, Anneliese Houppermans, who earned her money from a successful fruit and vegetable business, owned several houses in the community. She never married or had children, and her ties to her family had faded over the years.
At first (because I’m a rapidly evolving into my final curmudgeon form) this put me in mind of those families that ended up losing their house after appearing on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition because they could no longer afford the taxes and upkeep on their houses. But this line of the article helped put me at ease:
“I only have to pay €75,000 in inheritance tax which I have turned into a mortgage. I have effectively been given €200,000, it’s great,” he said.
Inheritance tax, in my opinion, is a very good thing. It prevents people from passing down wealth and keeps the playing field more even. Obviously nepotism and connections can’t be taxed, but it’s a step in the right direction. It’s not like they “deserved” that money or anything. I’m happy for them, but taxing it seems fine to help people with less.
It prevents people from passing down wealth
Unless you’re very wealthy and put your real estate into a company, and pass down the company to your children without paying taxes on it.
This is what’s currently happening in Belgium: https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20230324_96938388
Welcome to Holland, we’ve arranged good dikes, good infrastructure, social benefits and affordable healthcare for all.
How do we pay for all of it?
Yeah… You now know how. We pay a lot of tax. And I mean a lot. 17+ % VAT on everything. Cars have an extra tax called bpm of around 20%. So half the price of a car is tax. 1 litre (not a gallon!) of ron95? Over 2 euros. Etc. (because that’s not all)
It’s fun.
And thats why we are tall. Because if we weren’t we would drown in our taxes ;)
Dutch people pay so much tax because dutch companies pay so little tax, so pretty much the entire burden of paying the costs of the State comes from the wallets of individuals (whilst companies too are owned by individuals, those rich enough have many ways of avoiding paying tax on that and a lot of the biggest owners of the companies making profits in The Netherlands - whilst paying little tax on said profits - aren’t even resident in The Netherlands).
In countries were the tax take is more evenly balanced between people and businesses, people pay less taxes for more services (The Netherlands doesn’t even have a National Health Service, only a mixed Health Insurance system).
I lived in The Netherlands over a decade ago and already back then the country already had Northern European levels of taxation with nowhere near the levels of Public Services that countries with similar individual taxation - such as the Scandinavians - had and I doubt a decade of right-wing neoliberals in government has made things any better.
It should, IMO, be higher.
Especially when it’s not your kids.
People dont understand how much money like 200.000$ actually is.
It should be lower for 200.000$ then slide up to 100% on anything above 1.000.000$ or so
People inheriting 200.000$ aren’t causing the huge gap in wealth inequality
The tenants that moved out six months ago: “Well, shit!”
Uplifting story, though
This to a certain extent extent is what we should be doing with housing. We’ve got a huge problem with elderly Care and who’s going to take care of them and where the money is coming from. And we’ve got a huge problem with rent going out of control going into people’s pockets that aren’t going to use the money for anything. Why aren’t rents just going to pay towards people’s elderly Care I don’t understand.
We should use housing to lift up those who came before us and can’t carry as much as their own anymore as well as enriching those who come into replace them.
We pay for your retirement. We get the house. Then those after us pay for our retirement. The cycle continues.
Every generation should finance their own retirements. Fluctuating population will lead to few having to finance many. This is the state of affairs in Germany, where old people live in both huge places and are paid pensions which will be unreachable for the younger generation.
I live in a village with many single family houses from the 70s and 80s. The people living here are old and are either not capable or willing to invest in their homes Understandable in my opinion. Why invest if you know you’ll die in 10 years…
What I wished would happen that older people would downsize. It is common for older people to live in their 7 room house they build for their entire family of 5. Children all grown up and in different cities, house not maintained and only partially heated.
Feels like pragmatism dies before the rest. Just move to a smaller apartment and give the house meant for families back to families …
Everyone should have a guaranteed basic standard of living with dignity, then you wouldn’t need to worry so much about retirement.
Individualism is the wrong direction to go.
Oh but we can’t afford that! No, not if we let a small handful of our population buy yachts for their yachts and fly around the globe in their private jets, and no not if we let individual companies hoard more money than entire nations.
Work all your life
Able to afford stuff
Retire, want to enjoy your stuff
Random ass guy: your stuff is too big, you should sell it because I’m jealous and I want it.
Wait, which timeline are we in now?
Generally decent? I understand that someone can say “ooh she could’ve just gave it to her family to keep generational wealth” but she held housing for ransom for decades until her literal dying breath. I wonder what kind of life was afforded to her through her “substantial real estate.” This is orphan crushing machine at its best
Do you think it encourages people to be kind when they do something charitable and get told “Yeah, no, fuck you still”?
ALAB except this lady.
ALAB except this lady.
Apologies, but this is the first time I’ve seen the term ALAB and I couldn’t find it anywhere on the interwebs.
Could you explain what this means?
I mean she still stole people’s income for like. However many years. This deed of hers was good, but I’m not sure it makes up for (potentially) a lifetime of taking working class wages.
