Why give an exemption of 3.5 millon dollars if financial aristocracy is bad? Why vary the estate tax rate as wealth goes up if financial aristocracy is bad? Why write a tax law in a way that exempts certain people and punishes others? Why doesn't everyone own at least two cats? It just doesn't make any sense.
Why give an exemption of 3.5 millon dollars if financial aristocracy is bad? Why vary the estate tax rate as wealth goes up if financial aristocracy is bad? Why write a tax law in a way that exempts certain people and punishes others? Why doesn't everyone own at least two cats? It just doesn't make any sense.
That's a larger discussion, but note the rich have had enormous financial gains at the expense of the nation including on taxes since Reagan.
There's nothing wrong with balancing that and indeed it's essential we do if we like democracy, which cannot co-exist with oligarchy.
Tell you what, I'll let you have not a cent of new taxes, if you support the estate taxes and reduce the same amount in tax reductions for the bottom 80%.
We still have serious deficit issues to address, but I'd prioritize slowing our move to oligarchy. Will you meet halfway?
He's not, you are just posting a criminally dishonest and ignorant version of his point.
You just happen to leave out things like the *enormous* shifts for the rich to skyrocket while no one else does from policies since Reagan.
It's not just that they're the top 0.3%, there's a lot more to the story you don't know. See Zebo's thread today for a few statistics that are relevant.
You're doing the equivalent of defending Bernie Madoff because it's wrong just to take his money 'just because he's rich' and leaving out any of the rest of the story.
Replace 'ran a ponzi scheme' with 'bought our government to pass policies shifting trillions from the rest of the country to a few'. Things are out of balance, a lot.
It cause all kinds of problems from the corruption of our political system to the gutting of our middle class (all their wealth belongs in the hands of few) to a weaker economy.
I should learn not to post to ideologues, but I'll ask you, what is your plan to prevent the oligarchy we're on the road to becoming now?
No, you're a clueless bastard who thinks civilization has no cost, and the simplistic ideology to match it.
In your little world, you don't need worker safety laws - workers can just work somewhere else. You don't need drug safety laws, consumers can just buy from another company. You don't need doctor certification, people can just go to another doctor. You don't need FAA regulations, people can just on another airline.
You sound like - you can backpedal if you want to say this is not correct - you have the simplistic Libertarian mentality that simply has no place in the real world.
I'm for freedom for all citizens - political and economic, opportunity, and for more people doing well - a strong middle class - over oligarchy. You're not, whether you know it or not.
The only issues I have a problem compromising on are moral ones. I'm not a saint, not even close, but I do have a conscience.
I can't offer a plan to prevent something that has already happened. However, all it would take to end the current oligarchy is the end of the democratic and republican parties. Let me know how we can do that and I'll get right on it. You'll also need to figure out how to keep the parties that replace them from being purchased as well, though.
Lameness. $3.5M net worth isn't really rich by modern standards at all, and should satisfy middle class notions of providing for their children.
It's less than 1/1000 of what the top earning hedge fund manager made in 2009, which was $4B....
Wrap your head around the idea that America's wealthiest are rich in ways and amounts that the rest of us can't even comprehend. If a $1B estate paid 55% in taxes, there's still $450M+ left for the heirs... If there were 10 heirs, that's still an average of $45M in free money for each one.
*Free Money*, Get it? Money they didn't earn, never worked for, provided by accident of birth. 20X the total sum earned by an average american working for 50 years.
Guess who's financed the campaign to abolish the "death tax"? People who already have their own free money, and lots of it.
Speaking of meaningless crap....
What gives someone the right to transfer assets, the basis of which in many cases has never been taxed at its current value, "tax free" to their heirs?
and LOL @ Pulsar
You can't "...have your cake and eat it, too".
Either your grand parents had a working family farm, or they didn't. Either their heirs (your parents and you) had the plethora of options (under local, state and federal tax provisions) for protecting the property as a farm (or timber land, open space or conservation, preservation and/or scenic easement/property) or, they elected to "cash-out".
You can't have it both ways. Either the heirs wanted to protect the property, or, they chose not to protect the property.
You are not telling us the whole story.
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lol you think some redneck farmers sitting on a low cost basis gold mine that only materialized into cash wealth when they croaked knew to plan their estate for their death? Puhlease. This type of shit occurs frequently. Some old fart who grew up in the depression era buys his house for $500 in 1940 and it's worth $10 million because Walmart decided to build next to his backyard you think he's going to an estate lawyer for estate planning?
So the middle class has the right to support their children in the style they have become accustomed upon their death but the wealthiest don't have that right? Why is that?
I don't stand to inherit much if anything in the future, it doesn't matter if the inheritance tax remains as it is or goes back to what it was I won't pay a dime in tax, but I don't see an inheritance as free money and I don't think there should be an inheritance tax at all.
If we're going to have an inheritance tax exempt an amount equal to five times the current poverty threshold for each heir and set a flat percentage after that. If you're willing to forego 55% of your free money over the exemption great, if not figure out what you are willing to forego and set it at that.
I really don't understand people who are so jealous of what other people have they insist on sharing it while at the same time claiming a devine right to what they already have.
Dividends to shareholders are not tax deductible to corporations. Thus the shouts about double taxation.
The part you still don't get, NowhereM, is that the vast resources held by America's wealthiest has little effect on their lifestyles whatsoever. They're beyond the saturation point. Beyond some point or another, money and resources aren't about wealth at all, but about power, power over the rest of us.
I think it's also important not to set the exemption wrt estate taxes too low, because it'll kill middle class aspirations and damage whatever reserves middle class people have.
Inherit several million, have it made for life by the standards of most of America? Fine- because you have no power over me or others. Inherit vast sums, make more money than some small countries w/o lifting a finger, buy and sell politicians as if they were pet cats, finance think tanks and foundations to influence the thinking of the nation and the world? I think that needs to be reserved for people who've earned the money themselves, even if I might disagree with them...
Extreme concentrations of wealth via inheritance lead to oligarchy, whether that be the titled nobility that once ruled europe or the families that run south and central america. Constructive re-allocation of resources ceases, because they have excess resources in the first place. Human society has traditionally had ways other than taxation to correct that when it happens, usually war and revolution. Tear it all down, start over. America is very myopic in that respect, because we're a very young society. If we want to avoid the inevitability of undesirable solutions that cyclical over concentration of wealth has wreaked on other societies throughout history, we need to prevent that concentration in the first place...
I think it's also important not to set the exemption wrt estate taxes too low, because it'll kill middle class aspirations and damage whatever reserves middle class people have.
Inherit several million, have it made for life by the standards of most of America? Fine- because you have no power over me or others. Inherit vast sums, make more money than some small countries w/o lifting a finger, buy and sell politicians as if they were pet cats, finance think tanks and foundations to influence the thinking of the nation and the world? I think that needs to be reserved for people who've earned the money themselves, even if I might disagree with them...
Extreme concentrations of wealth via inheritance lead to oligarchy, whether that be the titled nobility that once ruled europe or the families that run south and central america. Constructive re-allocation of resources ceases, because they have excess resources in the first place. Human society has traditionally had ways other than taxation to correct that when it happens, usually war and revolution. Tear it all down, start over. America is very myopic in that respect, because we're a very young society. If we want to avoid the inevitability of undesirable solutions that cyclical over concentration of wealth has wreaked on other societies throughout history, we need to prevent that concentration in the first place...
Do you believe a majority of legislators exist who have not already been bought and are willing to pass the tax legislation you want?
What are you talking about with your "free money" bullshit? It's not free money, it was earned by someone. It doesn't really matter how they earned it, as long as it was lawful. One way or another, they paid taxes on it already. Why is the government entitled to more than half of it just because the person died?
Red Dawn
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On the other hand those ten heirs receiving 45 million dollars each have a leg up when it comes to earning their own wealth as wealth breeds wealth for those who work hard to to mention they are still firmly entrenched in the Ruling Class.
As a parent, isn't that what you strive for? To work hard to make sure your kids have a better life and have all the opportunities in the world? I know I work my ass off so that I can provide for my kids, for their education etc so that they have a shot at success in life.
One could make the same argument about my kids having an unfair advantage in life over the kids of a single mother who doesn't have the means to give them the advantages. Since I'm the one earning the money, I should get to decide who gets it when I die. If I want to give it to a charity, to a dog, or just have it stacked in a pile and burned, it should be my choice.
I don't have millions, so the death tax would not matter to me personally. I'm offended by the fundamental notion that it would be OK to steal more from one group of people because they accumulated wealth during their lifetime. That money has already been taxed.
Cliff Notes:
1) The Cons believe that the assets of an estate should pass tax free even when the accelerated basis of certain real and personal properties has never been taxed (Welfare for the Wealthy?);
2) An exemption of $3.5 million (which covers 99.7% of all estates) is not enough; and
3) 18 Families with a combined net worth of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax in an effort to evade $71.6 billion in taxes.
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1) The Cons believe that the assets of an estate should pass tax free even when the accelerated basis of certain real and personal properties has never been taxed (Welfare for the Wealthy?);
2) An exemption of $3.5 million (which covers 99.7% of all estates) is not enough; and
3) 18 Families with a combined net worth of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax in an effort to evade $71.6 billion in taxes.
--
Red Dawn
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You seeewhere you argument falls apart is that they achieved what you seek to achieve for your children. Their children, grand children and more than likely their great grand children will be able to reap the benefits of their hard work and enjoy the advantages so they to can be successful even with the estate tax. Once you get into that type of money it's really only keeping score, their life isn't going to be any different whether they have a 100 million or 45 million. If the Government were to take it all or most of it I would feel as you do but they don't even come close to doing that and those heirs aren't going to have to face any hardship what so ever because of it. They'll never want for money.
ebaycj
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It sounds like the real story is that their estate lawyer didn't know about the farm exemptions.
ebaycj
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Would you prefer that your children are taxed on their inheritance as if it were income, after you died? Because it is income to them. The estate tax should really be looked at as a relief to your children from having to pay full income tax on the whole estate.
The money has already been taxed. There is no such thing as tax free. If there are tax-deferred assets included in an estate, they still get taxed when the recipient of the estate actually tries to get them. Tax free is a bunch of crap. What the dems want to do is tax everything multiple times.
Why is that relevant? What if it was 90%? 80%? 70%? 99.999%? It makes no difference. Either it is fair to double tax something and take it from the people who earned it, or it is not.
Evade? That's not evading anything: every group tries to get it's tax burden lowered, those folks are no different. This is class warfare and class envy at it's worst.
ebaycj
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You also have the ability to vote (and voice your opinions to influence others' votes) to change government as you see fit, if you don't like it.
Where is this ability for corporations?
Red Dawn
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Is it ? How about an attempt to keep the Ruling Class from becoming even more powerful than they already are (not that it is actually effective)? If it was really class warfare they'd take it all.
Why pay a tax on an asset if it hasnt been sold? You are asking them to pay a transfer fee without realizing any monetary in hand appreciation. That is where I think this can get really fugly. Especially for small business and farmers. How is it morally justified to ask a small business to pay hundreds of thousands in taxes they cant afford because the owner died? In the process possibly folding and laying people off? Or how about family owned farms? How can a farm afford those taxes?
I have said this several times. This tax is a big old red herring for both sides. But I tend to side with people who want to abolish it. The idea assets should be taxed simply for changing hands within a family is assinine to me. Money, liquid assets are a different story. Those are something the family members can go out and buy something with, and I would tax them at personal income rates. But farms, a business, a house? I cant walk into BB and get a TV with those. And I would say tax them at the regular capital gains rate on the appreciation from when the original owners took posession when they are finally sold.
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