The UK government has announced plans to offer cash incentives to the relatives of elderly citizens who opt to be euthanized.
According to a disturbing report in the Telegraph, “terminally ill pensioners could end their lives earlier to spare loved ones six-figure tax bills under assisted dying legislation, experts have warned.” Under the current rules, pensions “are passed on free of income tax if the person dies before 75 years old.”
Infowars.com reports: Rob White wrote: “If assisted dying becomes legal, however, it could leave someone close to that age with an agonizing choice between prolonging their life or saving their family hundreds of thousands of pounds. Pensions specialist, Andrew Tully, said that the potential law change presented an additional consideration in what was already a ‘cliff-edge situation.’”
That is, someone who is 65 and ill could decide – or be pressured to decide – that opting for a lethal injection might be better for those who would thus inherit quite a bit more money, considering that if someone dies after age 75, “their beneficiaries have to pay income tax on what they receive, which could be up to 45pc.”
The Telegraph helpfully broke down the math:
For example, if someone died aged 75 with £500,000 in their pension pot, the person inheriting it could pay £225,000 in income tax if they took it as a lump sum. However, if the deceased had passed away any time before their 75th birthday, this tax bill would be reduced to zero. Andrew Tully, of Nucleus Financial, said it was “yet another consideration” for people at the end of their lives.
He said: “With pensions, there’s a cut-off age where death before age 75 is treated more generously tax-wise compared to deaths on or after age 75. This is a cliff-edge situation and a few days either way could have a significant financial impact. In some cases, it can be hundreds of thousands of pounds. When someone is terminally ill, consideration of tax and what money is passed on already adds extra stress, especially where complex family dynamics are involved. They’re at the end of their life, but at the same time are worried about providing for those they’ll leave behind.”
“We are yet to fully understand how the assisted dying legislation will work in practise, however, it is clearly vital that we create a system whereby wider financial considerations should not influence an individual’s decision,” Mike Ambery of Standard Life told the Telegraph. “In future, assisted dying will need to be a factor in the legal consideration of a multitude of financial circumstances, including lump sum death payments and estate planning.”
Again, this exposes the farcical nature of the “choice” and “autonomy” offered by assisted suicide regimes. The truth is that people will now be forced to make many, many choices that previously they were not faced with; that they will come under pressures, both internal and external, that they had previously not felt; that the option of assisted suicide will loom over every decision that they make. Only by keeping assisted suicide and euthanasia illegal can this be prevented. MP Kim Leadbetter – who has already noted that someone feeling like they are a burden is a perfectly “legitimate reason” to desire assisted suicide – is forcing people into this set of “choices.”