Another tax case that has been dragging along for a few years has now been concluded in the European Court of Human Rights.
The Burdens are elderly sisters who have lived together their whole lives. When one of them dies, this will trigger an inheritance tax bill as the deceased sister's half share of the house passes to the other. Their complaint was that, were they to be a married couple or in a civil partnership, then that tax bill would not arise, and that this was discrimination.
It seems to me that they are 100% right. I cannot think that a big tax relief should be granted to a couple purely on the basis of their having had sexual intercourse. Does that make any sense at all as a trigger for an inheritance tax break? Not to me.
In any case, they lost. The European Court found that the situation of cohabitating siblings was substantially different from that of a civil partnership, on the basis that civil partnership is a legally binding agreement whereas as cohabitation isn't. As far as I can see, that legally binding agreement is so easily broken that I can't think it's equitable for civil partners of a few months to get the tax relief while cohabiting siblings of more than 80 years don't. But there you go - as is often the case, looking for fairness and logic in tax is a waste of time.
Fortunately, the Burdens are apparently in position to pay any tax that becomes due anyway - they own another couple of properties and have a healthy estate. The case was brought as a point of principle, not one of hardship. I still think they were right, though.
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