minimum wage increase?!? only if the wealthiest get a tax break, too

[robphelan]

link

i don't see how the repugs can stand to look at themsleves in the mirror. they are attaching the first minimum wage increase in 9 (yes, that's correct) years to a bill that would cut the estate tax for the wealthiest Americans.

it's disgraceful.

the article goes on to mention that during the past 9 years, Congress has received 8 pay raises and is scheduled for its 9th.

 

[umbrella39]

Doesn't seem right now does it. Funny thing is, the champions of this admin, its policies, and this repug controlled congress are not nor will ever be in a position to benefit from these cuts and breaks. They are just wanabee rich boys who would sell their own mother for a chance to be in their little 1% club. Yawn.

 

[Pacemaker]

I am against the estate tax, but not because of the rich. I used to live in an area with many family farms and most times when the Owner of the land dies, the farm has to be sold. The estate tax on the average family farm is INSAINE when most of them barely make ends meet from year to year.

If you live in an area with a lot of family owned farms you would feel the same way. How does someone who makes about as much as a school teacher afford the 100-500k bill when someone dies?

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Pacemaker
I am against the estate tax, but not because of the rich. I used to live in an area with many family farms and most times when the Owner of the land dies, the farm has to be sold. The estate tax on the average family farm is INSAINE when most of them barely make ends meet from year to year.

If you live in an area with a lot of family owned farms you would feel the same way. How does someone who makes about as much as a school teacher afford the 100-500k bill when someone dies?

As the poster above you will say "Because they are rich duh!"

 

[TheAdvocate]

Originally posted by: Pacemaker
I am against the estate tax, but not because of the rich. I used to live in an area with many family farms and most times when the Owner of the land dies, the farm has to be sold. The estate tax on the average family farm is INSAINE when most of them barely make ends meet from year to year.

If you live in an area with a lot of family owned farms you would feel the same way. How does someone who makes about as much as a school teacher afford the 100-500k bill when someone dies?

The ceiling needs to be raised on the exemption. It's woefully out of date.

 

[CaptnKirk]

The way the numbers fall out is that some 25 million bottom wage workers can expect to get a 70-cent an hour increase
each year for 3 years - a total of an extra $ 28 per week (less than $ 1,500 per year) for each of the next 3 years,
effectively gaining almost $ 4,500 a year after the end of the 3th year, providing that the 8,000 most wealthy individuals
in the country are allowed to have a minimum break of over $ 5 million per person, or over 10 million for a couple.

Sell out the soul of the worker for chickenfeed, pennies to the poor, millions to the 'special interests'.

28 bucks a week - doesn't even cover a meth habit in the trailer park.

 

[Triumph]

Effectively a wage increase for everyone? Sounds fine to me. I really don't see the problem.

 

[Strk]

Originally posted by: TheAdvocate

Originally posted by: Pacemaker
I am against the estate tax, but not because of the rich. I used to live in an area with many family farms and most times when the Owner of the land dies, the farm has to be sold. The estate tax on the average family farm is INSAINE when most of them barely make ends meet from year to year.

If you live in an area with a lot of family owned farms you would feel the same way. How does someone who makes about as much as a school teacher afford the 100-500k bill when someone dies?

The ceiling needs to be raised on the exemption. It's woefully out of date.

Didn't they increase it to $5 million for individuals and $10 million for married couples?

 

[robphelan]

Originally posted by: Strk

Originally posted by: TheAdvocate

Originally posted by: Pacemaker
I am against the estate tax, but not because of the rich. I used to live in an area with many family farms and most times when the Owner of the land dies, the farm has to be sold. The estate tax on the average family farm is INSAINE when most of them barely make ends meet from year to year.

If you live in an area with a lot of family owned farms you would feel the same way. How does someone who makes about as much as a school teacher afford the 100-500k bill when someone dies?

The ceiling needs to be raised on the exemption. It's woefully out of date.

Didn't they increase it to $5 million for individuals and $10 million for married couples?

I think that's what the newly passed bill does is increase to 5 million (10 if married).

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: Pacemaker
I am against the estate tax, but not because of the rich. I used to live in an area with many family farms and most times when the Owner of the land dies, the farm has to be sold. The estate tax on the average family farm is INSAINE when most of them barely make ends meet from year to year.

If you live in an area with a lot of family owned farms you would feel the same way. How does someone who makes about as much as a school teacher afford the 100-500k bill when someone dies?

What exactly does most times mean? What is the average family farm?

Aren't many farms sold after a death b/c the children have long moved on to other careers?

The current estate tax endangers very few family farms.

Hype . . . meet facts.

A new study by the Congressional Budget Office examined estate tax returns filed by farmers and owners of small businesses in 1999 and 2000. The numbers that owed estate tax, the CBO found, were paltry, and the number without enough cash on hand to pay the bill even punier: In 2000, for example, just 1,659 farm estates had taxes due, of which 138 didn't report enough liquid assets to cover their tax liability.

But at that time the amount of money that could be passed on to heirs free of taxes was just half what it is now. With the current exemption level of $1.5 million, the CBO analysis found, only 300 farm estates in 2000 would have owed any tax at all -- and of those, just 27 would have a tax bill in excess of their liquid assets. At the even more generous exemption scheduled to take effect in 2009, $3.5 million, the ranks of those potentially hit hard by the tax would have dwindled even further; 65 farm estates would owe taxes and 13 would not have enough cash to cover the bill.

My grandfather was the family patriarch, a farmer with extensive land holdings, and had 7 kids. He began distributing property and money to his kids in his early 80s TAX FREE. When he died last year at 94, my grandmother still had just short of a million . . . almost all land. She sold it for the same reasons most former family farms sell . . . the kids aren't going to farm it, somebody wants to buy it, and Big Pharma doesn't accept corn.

For people opposed to the estate tax b/c they believe it is an unfair tax on wealth . . . so be it. It's a weak argument but at least there's a somewhat factual premise underlying it (tax on wealth). But the family farm argument is a lark. Remember, the claim isn't that family farms have to pay taxes . . . it's that family farms are destroyed b/c of estate taxes.

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Pacemaker
I am against the estate tax, but not because of the rich. I used to live in an area with many family farms and most times when the Owner of the land dies, the farm has to be sold. The estate tax on the average family farm is INSAINE when most of them barely make ends meet from year to year.

If you live in an area with a lot of family owned farms you would feel the same way. How does someone who makes about as much as a school teacher afford the 100-500k bill when someone dies?

As the poster above you will say "Because they are rich duh!"

Well then perhaps there should be an exemption for family farms, ONLY.

Bush has often cloaked this repeal of the "Death Tax" under this guise of protecting farmers, while they are by far the smallest group who will reap any benefit. This is similar to the SUV small business tax write off that was supposed to be for family farms to buy these vehicles to help them clear brush or whatever, but mostly it was used by doctors, lawyers, accountants, or your mom selling trinkets on ebay as an excuse to write off a $60,000 SUV.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: ayabe

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Pacemaker
I am against the estate tax, but not because of the rich. I used to live in an area with many family farms and most times when the Owner of the land dies, the farm has to be sold. The estate tax on the average family farm is INSAINE when most of them barely make ends meet from year to year.

If you live in an area with a lot of family owned farms you would feel the same way. How does someone who makes about as much as a school teacher afford the 100-500k bill when someone dies?

As the poster above you will say "Because they are rich duh!"

Well then perhaps there should be an exemption for family farms, ONLY.

Bush has often cloaked this repeal of the "Death Tax" under this guise of protecting farmers, while they are by far the smallest group who will reap any benefit. This is similar to the SUV small business tax write off that was supposed to be for family farms to buy these vehicles to help them clear brush or whatever, but mostly it was used by doctors, lawyers, accountants, or your mom selling trinkets on ebay as an excuse to write off a $60,000 SUV.

The same situation occurs when family business's are inherited that are valued at greater than the cap. If my parents owned a business worth 5 million dollars, where do I come up with the cash for the tax on 2 million of it?

The problem I have with the estate tax is the concept you are taxing wealth from family members to other family members. The other problem is often times the value isnt in cash but assets like stocks, bonds, or property. Something you may not be able to get cash value out of at a reasonable price to pay the tax.

This country is built on private ownership of wealth. The idea somebody thinks they have a right to take wealth somebody created through their life because they passed away is ridiculous.

I have no problem with the people recieving the estate pay capital gains on the assets when they are sold. Capital gains being taxation on profits realized.

I also realize this affects a small % of the population, but so does minimum wage increases, but nobody seems to have a problem talking about that.

 

[Pacemaker]

Maybe you should LIVE near people who have worked on farms there whole lives only to be told they owe a crazy amount of money to the government and see how you feel about it. BTW there are few family farms because this has already caused many of them into other jobs. I had many friends tell me that they didn't know what they were going to do when their father died because there was no way they could pay the taxes on the hundreds of acres of land they would inherit.

Don't tell me I don't know what I am talking about I LIVED it. I'm glad you can look things up on the internet to prove your point, but you haven't seen it ruin people.

Edit: quoted wrong person... Sorry 🙂

Also the family farm is pretty much a thing of the past, most of them are owned by corporations, but that doesn't stop me from being bitter about how the government basically forced them to sell their land, and I feel that even one more family farm being taken is too many.

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: Pacemaker
I am against the estate tax, but not because of the rich. I used to live in an area with many family farms and most times when the Owner of the land dies, the farm has to be sold. The estate tax on the average family farm is INSAINE when most of them barely make ends meet from year to year.

If you live in an area with a lot of family owned farms you would feel the same way. How does someone who makes about as much as a school teacher afford the 100-500k bill when someone dies?

the estate tax only affects the wealthiest 2% of all Americans.

http://www.irs.treas.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=108143,00.html.

The fact is that repealing the estate tax entirely, as the ad advocates, would benefit mostly non-farmers and non-business-owners.

http://www.factcheck.org/article328.html

As you were saying? You know some rich a$$ farmers...

 

[electrosoccertux]

The wealthiest Americans get tax cuts because they're the ones that take their money and invest it in the economy. This creates new jobs for people wishing to work hard.

Where I think this falls short is where there are too many of these people up top who go about investing but producing nothing. Sure it creates jobs for the economy, but when all these people invest, they put pressure on the company being invested in. Traders concerned with the next quarter's financials pressure the company to lay off workers/squeeze more work out of current workers to increase profits. At any rate, since the rich people up top are in a higher tax bracket, the government gets more of the profit they receive than of the profit a poor worker would receive if he invested his new tax break money. This is why a graduated income tax is TERRRIBLE.

In theory Raeganomics would be a self-regulating way to reward those who work hard, but greedy people up top in corporations screw it up. I don't know what the answer is, but giving tax breaks [to anybody] isn't it. If all the poor people get tax breaks, the greedy people up top get angry and say "OK, you guys get more tax breaks, so we'll just charge you more," which IIRC creates inflation.

A possible answer would be to do away with all the different taxes we have and have a universal sales tax. That way everybody is taxed the same, and there would be no monetary incentive for the government to tax the rich less. If a politician gives a tax break, EVERYBODY benefits directly, and everybody can buy more, If everybody buys more, production has to increase. This creates more jobs.


I think another problem we have is that we are in a transitioning period where we have the capability for some jobs to be done by robots, but not all (like creating/harvesting food). When only some jobs can be automated (Ford's production line) but not all (obtaining the materials for the Ford truck) then people are left with the lower paying jobs, while what would be a higher paying job (assembling/building trucks) is automated and the profit:work ratio goes up.

Anybody have a solution? In our market, all that matters is profit. Without a basis in religion anymore (provides restraint to bosses and people up to who make all the money....provides restraint on them to not seek more, particularly when doing so would harm others [like poor people, by taking more of their money away]) there is no reason for a person to not seek all the wealth and power he can at the expense of anybody and everybody.

 

[Pacemaker]

Originally posted by: Todd33

Originally posted by: Pacemaker
I am against the estate tax, but not because of the rich. I used to live in an area with many family farms and most times when the Owner of the land dies, the farm has to be sold. The estate tax on the average family farm is INSAINE when most of them barely make ends meet from year to year.

If you live in an area with a lot of family owned farms you would feel the same way. How does someone who makes about as much as a school teacher afford the 100-500k bill when someone dies?

the estate tax only affects the wealthiest 2% of all Americans.

http://www.irs.treas.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=108143,00.html.

The fact is that repealing the estate tax entirely, as the ad advocates, would benefit mostly non-farmers and non-business-owners.

http://www.factcheck.org/article328.html

As you were saying? You know some rich a$$ farmers...

The farmers aren't rich, but do you know how much a few hundred acres of land is worth? Depending on where you are, aka close to a city or not, it can be a TON. A friend of mine had his farm appraised and it was millions and millions for the farm. Granted he was on the outskirts of a chicago suberb, but it can happen. Basically yes the land is worth that if you have the time to wait and sell it for that price, but when you are hit with a tax out of the blue, basically you are forced to sell it for what you can get and often it's just enough to pay the tax.

Edit: not trying to be annoying, but I lived in an area with quite a few farms and I have a bit more real world prospective it seems.

 

[zendari]

I don't see how people can look at themselves in the mirror after supporting this discriminatory taxation.

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: Pacemaker

Edit: not trying to be annoying, but I lived in an area with quite a few farms and I have a bit more real world prospective it seems.

That may be but your experience contradicts the IRS data. Money is taxed when it changes hands, that's the way it works. Whether it's when someone leaves it to you, you buy something, sell something, earn something, etc. If some farm land is worth a ton due to it's location I'm supposed to feel sorry for some guy who gets to sell it making millions? Boo hoo. Take the money and buy some real farm land, way out in the middle of nowhere.

I wish someone would leave me $10 million in "farm" land, I'd gladly give the feds 40% and keep my $6 mill.

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: zendari
I don't see how people can look at themselves in the mirror after supporting this discriminatory taxation.

I'm glad you are on our side this time 😉

 

[Pacemaker]

Originally posted by: Todd33

Originally posted by: Pacemaker

Edit: not trying to be annoying, but I lived in an area with quite a few farms and I have a bit more real world prospective it seems.

That may be but your experience contradicts the IRS data. Money is taxed when it changes hands, that's the way it works. Whether it's when someone leaves it to you, you buy something, sell something, earn something, etc. If some farm land is worth a ton due to it's location I'm supposed to feel sorry for some guy who gets to sell it making millions? Boo hoo. Take the money and buy some real farm land, way out in the middle of nowhere.

I wish someone would leave me $10 million in "farm" land, I'd gladly give the feds 40% and keep my $6 mill.

Well, some people put more stock in the land they have had for generations, but that's another point. If the person had wanted the money for selling the land they would have sold it before they died. It is a removal of choice. How would you like it if the government decided they wanted to build a road through your house and forced you to sell it to them (which they can do BTW).

Edit: In a way it's worse then that. It is a removal of a way of life practiced by a family of people for generations. If someone willing leaves that life it's one thing, but being forced too is just wrong.

 

[fitzov]

The wealthiest Americans get tax cuts because they're the ones that take their money and invest it in the economy.

But they make their money off the backs of the people that work for them.

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: Pacemaker

Edit: In a way it's worse then that. It is a removal of a way of life practiced by a family of people for generations. If someone willing leaves that life it's one thing, but being forced too is just wrong.

The fact is the people affected are not farmers or small business owners, they are super wealthy. The Paris Hilton tax is a better name by far. The GOP is using farmers.

The farmland alone is worth more than $2.5 million, and so Mr. Riekena, 61, fretted that estate taxes would take a big chunk of his three grown daughters' inheritance.

For most farmers around here, the estate tax is not high in their minds. What we need are better crop prices.

Harlyn Riekena
Iowa Farmer

That might seem a reasonable assumption, what with all the talk in Washington about the need to repeal the estate tax to save the family farm. "To keep farms in the family, we are going to get rid of the death tax," President Bush vowed a month ago; he and many others have made the point repeatedly.

But in fact the Riekenas will owe nothing in estate taxes. Almost no working farmers do, according to data from an Internal Revenue Service analysis of 1999 returns that has not yet been published.

Neil Harl, an Iowa State University economist whose tax advice has made him a household name among Midwest farmers, said he had searched far and wide but had never found a farm lost because of estate taxes. "It's a myth," he said.

What is more, a farm couple can pass $4.1 million untaxed, so long as the heirs continue farming for 10 years.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0408-02.htm

Edit: Of course this data is old (2001) the limits have been raised again and again, making it even harder for a farmer to ever see an estate tax.

 

[OrByte]

farmer's dont have to worry about the estate tax.

it isn't for them.

as a matter of fact, farmer's benefit from the monies generated through the estate tax.

 

[Pacemaker]

Originally posted by: Todd33

Originally posted by: Pacemaker

Edit: In a way it's worse then that. It is a removal of a way of life practiced by a family of people for generations. If someone willing leaves that life it's one thing, but being forced too is just wrong.

The fact is the people affected are not farmers or small business owners, they are super wealthy. The Paris Hilton tax is a better name by far. The GOP is using farmers.

The farmland alone is worth more than $2.5 million, and so Mr. Riekena, 61, fretted that estate taxes would take a big chunk of his three grown daughters' inheritance.

For most farmers around here, the estate tax is not high in their minds. What we need are better crop prices.

Harlyn Riekena
Iowa Farmer

That might seem a reasonable assumption, what with all the talk in Washington about the need to repeal the estate tax to save the family farm. "To keep farms in the family, we are going to get rid of the death tax," President Bush vowed a month ago; he and many others have made the point repeatedly.

But in fact the Riekenas will owe nothing in estate taxes. Almost no working farmers do, according to data from an Internal Revenue Service analysis of 1999 returns that has not yet been published.

Neil Harl, an Iowa State University economist whose tax advice has made him a household name among Midwest farmers, said he had searched far and wide but had never found a farm lost because of estate taxes. "It's a myth," he said.

What is more, a farm couple can pass $4.1 million untaxed, so long as the heirs continue farming for 10 years.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0408-02.htm

Edit: Of course this data is old (2001) the limits have been raised again and again, making it even harder for a farmer to ever see an estate tax.

Well he didn't look very hard there were several in the town I grew up in. I will say in the last few years, they have done much to stop farms from being taken away, but I still don't like the fact that it could happen. Really though, I don't think estates should be taxed unless they are exeedingly wealthy, and in this day and age 5 million is really not that wealthy, that is a standard upper middle class retirement.

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: Pacemaker

Well he didn't look very hard there were several in the town I grew up in. I will say in the last few years, they have done much to stop farms from being taken away, but I still don't like the fact that it could happen. Really though, I don't think estates should be taxed unless they are exeedingly wealthy, and in this day and age 5 million is really not that wealthy, that is a standard upper middle class retirement.

The fact remains, the data says otherwise. I am led to believe that you are misled by the reasons these farms went under. Someone is lying to you or you are just getting hearsay. Only the wealthiest 2% of Americans every see the estate tax, is that the "upper middle class"? Not too mention the special provisions for farmers and business owners.

Spend a little more time fact checking and less time listing to the grumpy old guy at the barber 😉