Charity urges Government to use inheritance tax to fund care system

The charity Counsel & Care has urged the Government to look again at how inheritance tax could be used to fund care costs for the elderly and prevent people having to sell their homes to pay for care. Counsel & Care’s Chief Executive, Stephen Burke, made the call during the charity’s annual ‘Right care, Right deal’ conference on 25 February. Mr Burke described how the Government could help to fund a better standard of care for the elderly by levying a ‘care duty’ on estates. A duty of 2.5% on estates valued between £25,000 and £312,000 could raise at least £1.7 billion per year to help bridge the growing funding gap. The move would need to be accompanied by other reforms such as better use of existing funding, giving more support to carers and helping people to make the best use of their own resources. Mr Burke commented that the economic downturn is causing huge problems with the funding of care and the situation will only worsen if the Government does not take steps towards a drastic reform of the current care system when it publishes the long-awaited green paper in spring 2009. To find out more about Counsel & Care’s ‘Right care, Right deal’ campaign, visit their website. You can also download their press release about the 2009 conference from the site.