A new perspective on the estate tax

Sshhhhhh. They're trying to keep that rumor under wraps.

Again! Compared to what, Evie? Labor's meager and hard won fruits? SOMEBODY HAS GOT TO PAY THE DERN BILLS!!!!!!!! Do you understand that? You have got to admit that investment money, inheritance money, is more dependent on the smooth workings of society than labor income is. THAT'S what taxes are all about. The smooth workings of society. Free-income? - tax it zero. Dig a ditch-income? pay double!

I'm beginning to think your sympathetic boot-strapers parable is complete and utter snide-assed hokum!

Most capital gain does not represent an increase in wealth. It represents inflation which is caused by the government. Since there is no increase in underlying value, it should not be taxed at all. To do so is confiscation by the government which caused the inflation to begin with.

regarding inheritence tax is taxation on money that has already been taxed at least once .


With the complicated tax code as it is, espcially regarding what is an investment and how to tax it and it's proceeds, there is was when I was young a fairly widespread view that inheritance was the only time the truly wealthy paid their share after hiding and dodging for a lifetime.

Now inflation has moved many into the numbers that once only belong to the rarity as far as income, more are oppose than there use to be.

If you want to eliminate inheritance tax, you probably should also eliminate 90% of current deductions and exceptions in the tax laws.

To repeat my view.

First $15K totally exempt for everyone, that way it's fair. Just take $15K right off the top, then start counting.

Retirement saving accounts, rather something new or the curren IRA and 401K types next. Exactly where to put the annual limits, I'll confess to some uncertainty. The new limits (this year it's $14K for everyone, $18K if you're over 50) are nice, but how many people making $50K or less can take $14K out, pay taxes on the rest, and still make mortgage payments and maintain a household. It's even more unlikely for those under even $75K if raising 2 or more kids and sending them to college eventually.

Then start you % tax, flat or graduated. Only deductions perhaps education and medical bills. Or perhaps none.

JMO

Roger

click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

>>>Note that inheritence tax is taxation on money that has already been taxed at least once before.>>>

It's brand new income for the inheritor. Unworked for and unearned. Compare that to the effort expended by those who will have to take up the tax burden left by this blatant subsidy of wealth...

BURN BABY BURN!!!

-->

It is fact that the money has already been taxed at least once. That the recipient did not directly pay the tax does not change this fact.

In fact, the recipient has indirectly paid the tax. If the tax, originally extracted when the inheritance was being built, had not been extracted, the inheritance would be larger. In that case, there would be a stronger case for taxing the funds received.

Is it new income for the recipient? No. First, it may simply represent what is needed to maintain the existing life style of the recipient. For example, minor children will see no change in their environment unless it is degraded by taxes. Second, an inheritance is a gift rather than income. The state is claiming that a wealth holder cannot give gifts unless he/she also gives a gift to the state. This is tyranny is it not?

If you hang drywall for 40 years, and pay your income taxes on it, live your life and still manage to save a little pile of that money on the side and you die.

Now, you want your kids to have that money, you earned it, fair and square, and your kids need it, wouldn't you be mad if Uncle Sam steps in and takes a big chunk for taxes?

Your kids get less, and you'd already paid taxes on it as income when you earned it!

--Cindi
Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email the mods

There are collective bills to pay. SOMEBODY has to pay them. I benefit, so it's not just seizure. Yes, I would be mad if there weren't bills to pay. Fairness, seems to me, puts a claim on any new income to my heirs just the same as any other income. Otherwise, some other poor schmuck will have to shoulder the difference, and his dollar was hard earned.

If y'all so don't like taxes, let's hear about your plans to lower spending. Here's mine: pay off the debt! The interest is unconscionable!

After all, what choice do I have? Law-abiding citizen and all that. But let's don't pretend it's anything but seizure and lets oppose new taxes and spending at every turn.

How about across the board spending cuts in every area and I don't mean reductions in the rate of increase.

And how about if you really like a program you get to tell them to spend your taxes on that program instead of another one you dislike?

Specifics please. And what about my pay off the debt and save the interest proposal?

>>>And how about if you really like a program you get to tell them to spend your taxes on that program instead of another one you dislike?>>>

You have GOT to be kidding!? Now you don't like democracy? Or representative government? Got a gun? And lots of ammo?

"Democracy is Two Wolves and a Lamb Voting on What to Have for Lunch. Liberty is a Well-Armed Lamb Contesting the Vote"

It doesn't have to be that drastic. It can be phased in. The spending has to stop.

It's the first time I've heard a Republican complain about the spending in a long long time. They mostly just want to cut taxes on wealth, these days. No specifics though.

workers. You would leave them without a safe investment option.

The debt is a method for managing the economy. The economist I know says it should never be completely paid down. If savings in the economy are too high, there is great danger of a deflationary spiral. This, apparently, is what happened in Japan.

Whatever it is, I think its meant to be emphatic.

having a snit fit He can't write when he gets that ticked off He does come up with some good ones when he gets in that mood.

1. Congress, you remember Congress, our elected representatives, vote for a program. The Senate discusses, abuses, amends it then passes it, and eventually the President signs it. All these people were voted for at the appropriate times with larger or smaller majorities. 2. Then a form comes to your house. If you ignore it another form or letter comes to your house, eventually you get 3. summoned to court to answer why you're not responding to all these summonses and papers and forms that describe what it is that you are declining to fund, even though the government, your government voted on by one and all and who have come up with what they think is a good idea. 4. Eventually maybe even the sherriff comes to your place. Is it the SWAT team? No, it's the local elected sherriff who's trying once more to persuade you to do the rational thing and not make a mess of his record as a peace officer. Short of taking a pot shot at him, I don't see the slightest hint of force or guns here. If you do take a shot at him then its a whole new crime. Its not about the $378.00 you owe the tax man, it's about the contempt and resistance you offered to that nice man who just wanted to talk to you about reconsidering your position. This isn't Ruby Ridge, though with the precise right level of stupid responses on your part it could be. But that's not how it started. It started because you put yourself above the governments deliberative process and decided that paying for some g*dd@mn little old ladies teeth to be fixed was the last straw. The irony would be finding out she's your aunt, or mother or sister's old piano teacher. But dont think all this happened because you live in Union of Socialist States of America, because you don't. And taxes aren't confiscation either theyre just a bunch of people trying to make reasonable decisions for structuring life in the 21st Century. Occasionally chicanery and boondoggles and pork barrel politics slips in. and the newspaper covers it. If you're lucky somebody may go to jail. If you're smart it won't be you. This aint Bunker Hill or the Shot Heard Round the World or the Storming of the Winter Palace or the Battleship Potemkin or even Tien Ahn Minh Square. Its trivial, but you're all geared up for Black Helicopters and Delta Force coming down your chimney. I think you may be watching way too much television. The US government is on your side, They may not be on my side just at this moment, but they're definitely on YOUR side.

Rob Boyter

They are paying because of the consequences of not paying. Ultimately backed up by the power of the government, force. Nothing extremist about telling the truth.

have a Stove, NOT to have a Fridge, NOT to wear clothes, NOT to support my kids (oh, I forgot, most divorced fathers have already worked that one out) NOT to read, NOT to have a television, the list of essential items is almost endless

I just saw that the typical American family in the bottom 20th percentile spends between 7 and 10 percent of the family income on gasoline (petrol), the middle 20th percentile roughly 4%, The top 20 % about 2 %. That's what consumption tax is like. The poorest pay the greatest percentage of their income in tax, instead of a system that charges everybody roughly the same percentage OF THEIR INCOME. Taxation has to take some account of ability to pay.

I'd still suggest an exemption of the first 20K.

Rob Boyter

you willing to apply it first, off the top, for everyone, no matter what income, high or low?

JMO

Roger

click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

1. Exempt food, medical, etc. ... things that are now exempted from sales tax most states impose.

2. For low income people, issue a tax exempt "credit card" (like is now done for non-profits). It keeps track so if you share it with folks to cheat the system, you'll no longer be totally tax exempt once purchases exceed a certain amount.

enough to actually support a real person or family in this situation.

Rob

Government does not exist to support "a real person or family" -- that's the individual's responsibility. I'm talking relief for those that would genuinely be impacted by the supposedly "punitive" nature of a consumption tax. Think about all the privacy most of us regain not having to detail to the Federal Government yearly every asset, income, investment, etc.

Yet, if you own nothing, you are taxed, now, your entire "wealth".

the actual debates of the Constitutional Conventions nor by the debates on the Bill of Rights nor even by the Federalist or Anti-Federalist Papers.

The powers of government are carefully enumerated and the power to tax was carefully restricted and the words of the founders are quite explicit regarding their purpose in limiting taxation.

This is the modern world! We know oh so much better now.

Nice distortion... In fact, the inheritance tax was the first global tax on income (1797-1802), and was supported by many Founding Fathers, notably John Adams. One rationale was to prevent transfer of large amounts of income generationally, so that America would not become class-rigid like Britain. That's also the reason that most (all?) states still have laws against primogeniture.

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

Not exactly true that the inheritence tax was supported by the Founding Fathers. John Adams, yes.

John Adams also supported the Alien and Sedition Act and brought in a whole raft of other taxes, which prompted the revolution of 1800, lead by Thomas Jefferson. Adams lost the next election because of these taxes.

Adams raised taxes to raise money to fund a military force. The excuse about preventing transfers of money generationally came much later and is, in my opinion a bogus excuse anyway.

If I have money and want to bequeath it to my kids it is my business, not the government's. They have already taken their 40 pounds of flesh against my will and are not entitled to another bite.

Primogeniture used to be the law, which was swept away by laws permitting wills to be made. This allowed people to leave their fortunes to whomever they wanted instead of the eldest son inheriting all by law. A whole different issue than the inheritence tax.