Please explain why the death/estate tax is fair.

[Deudalus]

So I'm just curious who among you support the estate/death tax.

Basically how it works is when your direct family member dies you have to pay the IRS a tax based on anything the leave you. So basically this is money that has already been taxed once through income taxes, taxed again through anything you bought with it through sales taxes, then finally taxed the last time when the person dies and leaves money to loved ones.

Please explain to me:

1: How you think this is fair (and please no LOL fuck the rich people lets use some intelligence)
2: The value of the estate required to put the death tax into effect (ala person is worth 100k so tax them, but 99k don't tax them)
3: What rate should they be taxed?

 

[Infohawk]

You have to start with the question, "Do you think taxation is fair?" Then you go to the question, "Is progressive taxation (read taxing higher wealth/income people more) fair?" If your answer to either of these is no, then there's no point talking about the estate tax.

With that said, double-taxation is not that big of a problem in itself. The disadvantages of double-taxation is that it is messy and creates more administrative overhead. For that reason I'm not a big fan of corporate income taxes. On the other hand, there are times when it's useful, as with the estate tax.

1) The estate tax is "fair" in the same way that any other taxation scheme is fair. We are primates. We are social. It's normal that humans place privileges, restrictions and duties on each other. (The fact that you ask this makes me think you have problem with taxation generally, which is another issue.)
2) These days, I would say $4,000,000 per child should not be taxed
3) After that, I would increase it progressively up to 90%. If you have a billion dollar estate, then I would tax you $900m UNLESS you want to leave it to non-profits or even corporate entities.

The whole point of the estate tax is to prevent the creation of dynasties and entrenched classes.

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: Deudalus
So I'm just curious who among you support the estate/death tax.

Basically how it works is when your direct family member dies you have to pay the IRS a tax based on anything the leave you. So basically this is money that has already been taxed once through income taxes, taxed again through anything you bought with it through sales taxes, then finally taxed the last time when the person dies and leaves money to loved ones.

Please explain to me:

1: How you think this is fair (and please no LOL fuck the rich people lets use some intelligence)
2: The value of the estate required to put the death tax into effect (ala person is worth 100k so tax them, but 99k don't tax them)
3: What rate should they be taxed?

There are differerent philosophies on taxation.

Some people want efficiency to attain a minimum amount of revenues. Others want some type of social restructuring/engineering.

 

[Deudalus]

Originally posted by: Infohawk
You have to start with the question, "Do you think taxation is fair?" Then you go to the question, "Is progressive taxation (read taxing higher wealth/income people more) fair?" If your answer to either of these is no, then there's no point talking about the estate tax.

With that said, double-taxation is not that big of a problem in itself. The disadvantages of double-taxation is that it is messy and creates more administrative overhead. For that reason I'm not a big fan of corporate income taxes. On the other hand, there are times when it's useful, as with the estate tax.

1) The estate tax is "fair" in the same way that any other taxation scheme is fair. We are primates. We are social. It's normal that humans place privileges, restrictions and duties on each other. (The fact that you ask this makes me think you have problem with taxation generally, which is another issue.)
2) These days, I would say $4,000,000 per child should not be taxed
3) After that, I would increase it progressively up to 90%. If you have a billion dollar estate, then I would tax you $900m UNLESS you want to leave it to non-profits or even corporate entities.

The whole point of the estate tax is to prevent the creation of dynasties and entrenched classes.

I could agree with most of that other than the progressing up to 90% deal, I think thats a bit much.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Infohawk
You have to start with the question, "Do you think taxation is fair?" Then you go to the question, "Is progressive taxation (read taxing higher wealth/income people more) fair?" If your answer to either of these is no, then there's no point talking about the estate tax.

With that said, double-taxation is not that big of a problem in itself. The disadvantages of double-taxation is that it is messy and creates more administrative overhead. For that reason I'm not a big fan of corporate income taxes. On the other hand, there are times when it's useful, as with the estate tax.

1) The estate tax is "fair" in the same way that any other taxation scheme is fair. We are primates. We are social. It's normal that humans place privileges, restrictions and duties on each other. (The fact that you ask this makes me think you have problem with taxation generally, which is another issue.)
2) These days, I would say $4,000,000 per child should not be taxed
3) After that, I would increase it progressively up to 90%. If you have a billion dollar estate, then I would tax you $900m UNLESS you want to leave it to non-profits or even corporate entities.

The whole point of the estate tax is to prevent the creation of dynasties and entrenched classes.

So in other words I work my ass off and build up a billion dollar company and then die in some freak accident involving naked super models and the government gets to sweep in and take $900 million of my hard earned money??? What the hell is wrong with you??


The ONLY money government should get via death taxes is money from unrealized gains.

IE. Tomorrow I go out and buy $1000 worth of Microsoft stocks.

20 years from now I die and those shares are now worth $10,000. During that time I never sold or traded or did anything else with them. At that point my estate should be taxed the $9000 worth of capital gains I would have had I sold the stocks while alive. After that they government should get nothing.

The estate tax is nothing but a class warfare tax. "The rich have lots of money so let's take it from them!"

 

[Tab]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Deudalus
***stuff***

There are differerent philosophies on taxation.

Some people want efficiency to attain a minimum amount of revenues. Others want some type of social restructuring/engineering.

That's what it seems to be, or that's the reasoning for the tax. So, the "rich" don't horde all the wealthy?

Anyway, it seems like a very poor justification. I don't like it.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
So in other words I work my ass off and build up a billion dollar company and then die in some freak accident involving naked super models and the government gets to sweep in and take $900 million of my hard earned money??? What the hell is wrong with you??
The ONLY money government should get via death taxes is money from unrealized gains.
IE. Tomorrow I go out and buy $1000 worth of Microsoft stocks.
20 years from now I die and those shares are now worth $10,000. During that time I never sold or traded or did anything else with them. At that point my estate should be taxed the $9000 worth of capital gains I would have had I sold the stocks while alive. After that they government should get nothing.
The estate tax is nothing but a class warfare tax. "The rich have lots of money so let's take it from them!"

It wouldn't be your money anymore. Once you die the money goes to your estate. The tax is really on the estate, hence the name.

Class warfare? Perhaps in the same way the founding fathers fought against the British monarchy. After all, they were big supporters of the estate tax.

 

[wirelessenabled]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Infohawk
You have to start with the question, "Do you think taxation is fair?" Then you go to the question, "Is progressive taxation (read taxing higher wealth/income people more) fair?" If your answer to either of these is no, then there's no point talking about the estate tax.

With that said, double-taxation is not that big of a problem in itself. The disadvantages of double-taxation is that it is messy and creates more administrative overhead. For that reason I'm not a big fan of corporate income taxes. On the other hand, there are times when it's useful, as with the estate tax.

1) The estate tax is "fair" in the same way that any other taxation scheme is fair. We are primates. We are social. It's normal that humans place privileges, restrictions and duties on each other. (The fact that you ask this makes me think you have problem with taxation generally, which is another issue.)
2) These days, I would say $4,000,000 per child should not be taxed
3) After that, I would increase it progressively up to 90%. If you have a billion dollar estate, then I would tax you $900m UNLESS you want to leave it to non-profits or even corporate entities.

The whole point of the estate tax is to prevent the creation of dynasties and entrenched classes.

So in other words I work my ass off and build up a billion dollar company and then die in some freak accident involving naked super models and the government gets to sweep in and take $900 million of my hard earned money??? What the hell is wrong with you??


The ONLY money government should get via death taxes is money from unrealized gains.

IE. Tomorrow I go out and buy $1000 worth of Microsoft stocks.

20 years from now I die and those shares are now worth $10,000. During that time I never sold or traded or did anything else with them. At that point my estate should be taxed the $9000 worth of capital gains I would have had I sold the stocks while alive. After that they government should get nothing.

The estate tax is nothing but a class warfare tax. "The rich have lots of money so let's take it from them!"

If you live in an aristocratic society rather than our meritocracy you won't have the opportunity to build a $1 bil company.

What have Bill Gates heirs done/contributed to be able to live off Bill's genius for the rest of time?

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
So in other words I work my ass off and build up a billion dollar company and then die in some freak accident involving naked super models and the government gets to sweep in and take $900 million of my hard earned money??? What the hell is wrong with you??
The ONLY money government should get via death taxes is money from unrealized gains.
IE. Tomorrow I go out and buy $1000 worth of Microsoft stocks.
20 years from now I die and those shares are now worth $10,000. During that time I never sold or traded or did anything else with them. At that point my estate should be taxed the $9000 worth of capital gains I would have had I sold the stocks while alive. After that they government should get nothing.
The estate tax is nothing but a class warfare tax. "The rich have lots of money so let's take it from them!"

It wouldn't be your money anymore. Once you die the money goes to your estate. The tax is really on the estate, hence the name.

Class warfare? Perhaps in the same way the founding fathers fought against the British monarchy. After all, they were big supporters of the estate tax.

No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: wirelessenabled

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Infohawk
You have to start with the question, "Do you think taxation is fair?" Then you go to the question, "Is progressive taxation (read taxing higher wealth/income people more) fair?" If your answer to either of these is no, then there's no point talking about the estate tax.

With that said, double-taxation is not that big of a problem in itself. The disadvantages of double-taxation is that it is messy and creates more administrative overhead. For that reason I'm not a big fan of corporate income taxes. On the other hand, there are times when it's useful, as with the estate tax.

1) The estate tax is "fair" in the same way that any other taxation scheme is fair. We are primates. We are social. It's normal that humans place privileges, restrictions and duties on each other. (The fact that you ask this makes me think you have problem with taxation generally, which is another issue.)
2) These days, I would say $4,000,000 per child should not be taxed
3) After that, I would increase it progressively up to 90%. If you have a billion dollar estate, then I would tax you $900m UNLESS you want to leave it to non-profits or even corporate entities.

The whole point of the estate tax is to prevent the creation of dynasties and entrenched classes.

So in other words I work my ass off and build up a billion dollar company and then die in some freak accident involving naked super models and the government gets to sweep in and take $900 million of my hard earned money??? What the hell is wrong with you??


The ONLY money government should get via death taxes is money from unrealized gains.

IE. Tomorrow I go out and buy $1000 worth of Microsoft stocks.

20 years from now I die and those shares are now worth $10,000. During that time I never sold or traded or did anything else with them. At that point my estate should be taxed the $9000 worth of capital gains I would have had I sold the stocks while alive. After that they government should get nothing.

The estate tax is nothing but a class warfare tax. "The rich have lots of money so let's take it from them!"

If you live in an aristocratic society rather than our meritocracy you won't have the opportunity to build a $1 bil company.

What have Bill Gates heirs done/contributed to be able to live off Bill's genius for the rest of time?

What have we done to be able to take the fruits of his genius?

 

[hellokeith]

Originally posted by: Infohawk
The whole point of the estate tax is to prevent the creation of dynasties and entrenched classes.

This could be done far more easily than a messy estate tax. Since you are comfortable imposing your will on people's pocketbooks, a much better solution would be to make Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Julliard, and Berkeley 100% open and 100% free for any applicant (including Caucasian male US citizens).

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: hellokeith
This could be done far more easily than a messy estate tax. Since you are comfortable imposing your will on people's pocketbooks, a much better solution would be to make Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Julliard, and Berkeley 100% open and 100% free for any applicant (including Caucasian male US citizens).

Imposing my will on people's pocketbooks? A) They're dead. B) Governments impose their will on everyone all the time, that's the nature of government. It's a problem when the imposition is excessive, but that's not what you're arguing.

Do you really think that 100% free and open elite schools would remain elite? They wouldn't. Furthermore, there would still be dynasties even with free and open elite schools. $500m > Harvard degree.

 

[JSt0rm]

It's fair because if these people didn't live in America chances are they wouldn't of been able to amass such wealth in the first place. Why shouldn't they help pave the way for new people to make the same fortunes?

I mean if your grandfather and therefore you live in Somalia you wouldn't have shit no matter what the tax was. You live in America. You won the lottery already, on top of that your worried about whats gonna happen to your dads money when he croaks. That means your set unless your a total retarded fool.

Let me ask this. Would you have the estate tax removed if it meant that returning veterans get no health care?

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
It's fair because if these people didn't live in America chances are they wouldn't of been able to amass such wealth in the first place. Why shouldn't they help pave the way for new people to make the same fortunes?

I mean if your grandfather and therefore you live in Somalia you wouldn't have shit no matter what the tax was. You live in America. You won the lottery already, on top of that your worried about whats gonna happen to your dads money when he croaks. That means your set unless your a total retarded fool.

Let me ask this. Would you have the estate tax removed if it meant that returning veterans get no health care?

Because Bill Gates pays $0 in taxes while he's alive, right?

Compared to the rest of the world, everyone in America is wealthy.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: wirelessenabled
If you live in an aristocratic society rather than our meritocracy you won't have the opportunity to build a $1 bil company.

What have Bill Gates heirs done/contributed to be able to live off Bill's genius for the rest of time?

It is his money and he can do whatever he wants to do with it.

If he wants to give it to his kids then good for him. If he wants to give it to charity then wonderful, but the government should not step in and take HIS money just because he died.

BTW Microsoft employs almost 90,000 people world wide now and I would suspect that hundreds of thousands of other people have jobs in direct connection to what Bill Gates was able to do. I think he has give more than enough to society based on that alone.

 

[hellokeith]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

It is his money and he can do whatever he wants to do with it.

Which gives me a humorous idea. He simply appoints all his children lifetime board members of the Gates Foundation and then donates 90% of his money to that foundation. I guess this would pass Infohawk's litmus tests, and yet the rich still stay rich.. hrmmm.

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: wirelessenabled
If you live in an aristocratic society rather than our meritocracy you won't have the opportunity to build a $1 bil company.

What have Bill Gates heirs done/contributed to be able to live off Bill's genius for the rest of time?

It is his money and he can do whatever he wants to do with it.

If he wants to give it to his kids then good for him. If he wants to give it to charity then wonderful, but the government should not step in and take HIS money just because he died.

BTW Microsoft employs almost 90,000 people world wide now and I would suspect that hundreds of thousands of other people have jobs in direct connection to what Bill Gates was able to do. I think he has give more than enough to society based on that alone.

Someone that is dead cannot own anything, so the moment you die you don't have any money to give. If you give your money to someone while they're alive, it's subject to gift tax.

 

[HombrePequeno]

Originally posted by: hellokeith

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

It is his money and he can do whatever he wants to do with it.

Which gives me a humorous idea. He simply appoints all his children lifetime board members of the Gates Foundation and then donates 90% of his money to that foundation. I guess this would pass Infohawk's litmus tests, and yet the rich still stay rich.. hrmmm.

I'm not so sure it works quite like that. I'm pretty sure you have to give away a certain percentage of what you take in to be considered a charitable organization. Even then, the board members would get salaries to run the foundation, not one lump sum.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Originally posted by: Deudalus
So I'm just curious who among you support the estate/death tax.

Basically how it works is when your direct family member dies you have to pay the IRS a tax based on anything the leave you. So basically this is money that has already been taxed once through income taxes, taxed again through anything you bought with it through sales taxes, then finally taxed the last time when the person dies and leaves money to loved ones.

Please explain to me:

1: How you think this is fair (and please no LOL fuck the rich people lets use some intelligence)
2: The value of the estate required to put the death tax into effect (ala person is worth 100k so tax them, but 99k don't tax them)
3: What rate should they be taxed?

How about to avoid a class system made up of generations of drones? Don't expect me to cry for the "poor" little rich kids when most of the "real" poor get their estate confiscated by state agencies to pay back for end of life expenses.

 

[Thump553]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Infohawk
You have to start with the question, "Do you think taxation is fair?" Then you go to the question, "Is progressive taxation (read taxing higher wealth/income people more) fair?" If your answer to either of these is no, then there's no point talking about the estate tax.

With that said, double-taxation is not that big of a problem in itself. The disadvantages of double-taxation is that it is messy and creates more administrative overhead. For that reason I'm not a big fan of corporate income taxes. On the other hand, there are times when it's useful, as with the estate tax.

1) The estate tax is "fair" in the same way that any other taxation scheme is fair. We are primates. We are social. It's normal that humans place privileges, restrictions and duties on each other. (The fact that you ask this makes me think you have problem with taxation generally, which is another issue.)
2) These days, I would say $4,000,000 per child should not be taxed
3) After that, I would increase it progressively up to 90%. If you have a billion dollar estate, then I would tax you $900m UNLESS you want to leave it to non-profits or even corporate entities.

The whole point of the estate tax is to prevent the creation of dynasties and entrenched classes.

So in other words I work my ass off and build up a billion dollar company and then die in some freak accident involving naked super models and the government gets to sweep in and take $900 million of my hard earned money??? What the hell is wrong with you??


The ONLY money government should get via death taxes is money from unrealized gains.

IE. Tomorrow I go out and buy $1000 worth of Microsoft stocks.

20 years from now I die and those shares are now worth $10,000. During that time I never sold or traded or did anything else with them. At that point my estate should be taxed the $9000 worth of capital gains I would have had I sold the stocks while alive. After that they government should get nothing.

The estate tax is nothing but a class warfare tax. "The rich have lots of money so let's take it from them!"

Actually, PJ, your proposal is opposite from the current law and would screw over a lot of small businessmen and farmers as well as the person in the very example your gave-the billion dollar company. Farmers & family companies generally have mostly unrealized gains (hopefully gains, at least) on their death, and their goal is to pass on the business or farm to their heirs undisturbed. Taxing those unrealized gains would be counterproductive. The present law has what is called a stepped up basis, where the basis (ie, cost for income tax purposes) for your heirs is the value of the asset on the date of your death, not what you paid for it. In other words, that unrealized gain is permanently excluded from taxation.

The present estate tax laws have extremely generous exemptions and it is trivially easy to exclude even more of your estate without evening breaking a sweat. It is not the boogie man so many right wingers make it out to be, and certainly not until you get into the Hollywood star/CEO financial class. It's rare these days for the average estate practitioner to even have to file an estate tax return and pretty much a once in a decade situation when a client actually has to pay ANY federal estate taxes (nearly all states have wiped out their state inheritance taxes already).

Personally I think economic stratification is a far worse problem, and is rapidly changing the US from the country our grandfathers would recognize into an old style European aristocracy.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: Deudalus

Basically how it works is when your direct family member dies you have to pay the IRS a tax based on anything the leave you. So basically this is money that has already been taxed once through income taxes, taxed again through anything you bought with it through sales taxes, then finally taxed the last time when the person dies and leaves money to loved ones.

Let me start by saying I hate the death tax...

But this argument that any money passed on to an heir has already been taxed and taxed and taxed is WRONG. If you die and leave an IRA to an heir it's likely that NONE of that money was ever taxed, including the amount paid in. (401k)

If they leave you a business, the business may have paid lots of taxes in many forms but the appreciation of the business (its sellable value) was never taxed either. You don't pay taxes on the value of the business while you're alive.

The only thing you could argue was taxed and taxed and taxed would be any loose cash/mattress money you might inherit and that probably won't be picked up by the IRS since there is no paper trail on that.

The sales tax argument is even more laughable. How are you going to inherit money that they already spent? :laugh:

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: Deudalus
So I'm just curious who among you support the estate/death tax.

Basically how it works is when your direct family member dies you have to pay the IRS a tax based on anything the leave you. So basically this is money that has already been taxed once through income taxes, taxed again through anything you bought with it through sales taxes, then finally taxed the last time when the person dies and leaves money to loved ones.

Please explain to me:

1: How you think this is fair (and please no LOL fuck the rich people lets use some intelligence)
2: The value of the estate required to put the death tax into effect (ala person is worth 100k so tax them, but 99k don't tax them)
3: What rate should they be taxed?

Please explain how it is fair that I have to pay tax on the money I earn working? Clearly the person paying me has already paid tax on that money so why should I have to do it again?

 

[Capitalizt]

Originally posted by: Deudalus
and please no LOL fuck the rich people

You won't get any answers like this, but despite the convoluted arguments people will make for the tax, this is what their attitudes usually boil down to on the most basic level...envy..jealousy..and a desire to "get" those who have achieved more than they have in life. All this blabber saying "They're dead...They don't care!" is nonsense. A tax on an estate is a tax on the person who earned the estate. The tax prevents them from disposing of their property as they see fit. It is a harsh penalty on their life's work.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Capitalizt

Originally posted by: Deudalus
and please no LOL fuck the rich people

You won't get any answers like this, but despite the convoluted arguments people will make for the tax, this is what their attitudes usually boil down to on the most basic level...envy..jealousy..and a desire to "get" those who have achieved more than they have in life.

I have said before that anyone who says the concern with the concentration of wealth is about "envy" is idiotic, and I see I need to say it again.

 

[Capitalizt]

ah, I knew you would pop up the moment I posted craig ole buddy 😉

It's ok if you can't admit it. It's still true.