After the death of the person occurs is often too late.
What is this, fourth grade? :rolleyes:
If you have an argument to make for a rate <100% based on something more than a vague claim to a “basic human right”, and in spite of your party’s preachings, you have every opportunity to make it. Any time at all.
And the heirs? Are the heirs subject to the same “market”, the same pressures and decisions you hold so dear as are others who chose less-wealthy parents? You know they are not. So what follows from that realization?
It’s what people who are opposed to estate taxes call them. Just like people on either side of the abortion debate are either “pro-choice” or “pro-life” people on either side of this debate call it the “death tax” or the “estate tax”.
Consider your ignorance fought. Free of charge.
Whatever are you talking about? Care to state this clearly and make an argument that I can respond to rather than this throw-away line?
And it was worth every penny.
I think a better analogy would be calling the pro-choice folks “pro-abortion”.
Did you know taxes were much higher than 55% a half century ago? Stop whining, the previous generation didn’t. You know, if anyone, including yourself, feel taxes are too high: there’s nothing stopping you from going to the Secretary of State and renouncing your citizenship. Nothing in the world is stopping you. If the deficit is truly an “issue” as Republicans are making it to be then the government ought to squeeze the wealth of the rich to assuage this terrible, all-encompassing “problem”.
- Honesty
I can respect this attitude. “A fool and their money were lucky enough to get together in the first place.” - Gordon Gekko.
But, ultimately, I disagree. Why not set a tax policy that is fair? If we need more income then raise it using other methods which aren’t so easily avoided. Set a tax that is paid by all, not just those lacking good lawyers.
Agreed. In that regard the analogy doesn’t work. But, you get my point. Why this hostility to passing wealth along from one generation to the next? It seems that some posters are fine with that on a global level but adamantly opposed to it at an individual or family level.
It has nothing to do with raising revenue or good tax policy. It’s much more visceral. They seem to hate that there are winners and losers in life and want to force a fairness upon everyone, even if it results in the loss of family owned businesses, farms, estates, houses and money. People should be able to pass on their wealth. We should be trying to get everyone in this country to be wealthy, not ensuring everyone is equal but poor.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
So, you refuse to answer?
I have answered you. My position on the death tax overall is the same as Romney’s. I’ll even post it again so you don’t have to go back to page one to read it:
So, I have put up. It’s time for you to put up or shut up.
Yes. Yes they are. According to your logic, people who inherit wealth will be entitled, arrogant, “lazy little shits”. So, they’d probably be at a disadvantage, right?
Yes. I did.
Did you know that although the rates were that high no one actually paid that much because of the way taxes worked back then?
So anyone who disagrees with you on tax policy has to leave the country. That’s an interesting mindset you’ve got there.
If someone wants there to be zero death tax, like Romney and myself, certainly we should be kicked out. What about if someone wants the rate to be 50% instead of 55%? Should they be dropped out of a C-130 cargo jet over the Atlantic too?
Sheesh.
An important point which often seems ignored in debate about the estate tax is that a very large portion of a very rich estate is likely to have the form of unrealized capital gains. That is effectively income (or “paper” income) which has never been taxed and will not be taxed except via the estate tax. (If you buy Apple at $20 per share, die when it’s worth $100 per share, and your heirs sell it for $110, they will pay tax only on the $10 profit since their inheritance.)
One can argue that the computation of estate tax is inappropriate – it doesn’t distinguish gains from cost – but, since so much wealth has the form of unrealized capital gains, it shows much ignorance to argue that the estate tax is double taxation. To the contrary, without it, much capital gains escape any taxation whatsoever.
That analogy doesn’t work because calling it the “death tax” isn’t insulting to the group of people on the other side of the issue. It’s a framing of the issue itself. Just like “pro-choice” and “pro-life” is a framing of that issue.
In any case, even if you don’t like it that term is here to stay. About half the people in this country disagree with you on this issue and they’re going to call this tax the “death tax” for the rest of your life.
Might as well get used to it. Arguing with it is like pissing into the wind.
septimus, I agree with you. That is an issue. Check out post #40.
I quoted the whole thing, so yes, I did read the whole thing. But what you say addresses my point, really doesn’t.
First you’ve got the standard the-market-will-reward-those-who-deserve-it bit, which is fine. And from that you leap to let-them-pass-it-on-to-their-heirs. I just don’t see any connection between those two statements. You seemed to put them together as if one would reinforce the next, but I see them as contradictory. What value have the heirs provided that they are being rewarded for? If the market is so good rewarding those who add value, what good does it serve to exempt the heirs from the market?
I never said the wealth should be taken away, for fairness or any other reason. I just thought that your premise contradicted your conclusion.
That’s true, it’s not normally taxed; estate taxes only affect a very small percentage of people. So, the question is: why those people?
I agree that being able to pass along one’s wealth to one’s heirs is a right with a lot of historical basis. But that used to include the right for the king to make his son king as well, and we don’t allow that sort of power transfer any more.
Extremely large amounts of money translate into power as well, and part of maintaining a free and democratic society is limiting the accumulation of dynastic wealth. Certainly, we shouldn’t take 100%, just as we shouldn’t tax income 100%. And perhaps the exclusion should be 10 million instead of 5, since it is possible to be land-rich and cash-poor and have to sell the family farm. Maybe the rate should be 20% for the first billion and only go up after there? There are lots of reasonable discussions to have about this.
Capitalism is awesome. But it tends to help the winners win more. There are so many things, from network effects, to class, to economies of scale that help people from rich families remain rich and increase their riches. The few things we have to help out the poor (like a progressive taxation structure and an estate tax) certainly aren’t tipping the balance the other way. They’re just putting some minor brakes on the unbalancing of society.
Its actually paid by the estate not the heirs.
The exemption is $5 million per estate right now.
But it affects a lot more than that. There is only so much you can legally and effectively shelter from the estate tax. This is why so many heirs want to get rid of it. If it were really just a matter of legal fees, they wouldn’t have a problem with it but in the end, they do get nailed by it.
there is a big difference between 55 (its 35% now) and 100% that’s more hyperbole, thats a distrotion that allows you to use an argument that wouldn’t work if you used the actual facts.
We are in one of the lowest tax environments we’ve had in a century and I still hear people acting like we NEED tax cuts and some relief from these HIGH tax rates. So when I hear people cmoplaining that the tax rates of teh Clinton era are too high, you just lose credibility. BTW, there is almost no way that we see the estate tax lapse to teh default 55% rate next year. That is one issue that Republicans will not obstruct.
The ownership of the highways doesn’t change hands. They belong to the government that we all pay taxes to. If you personally owned a highway, then I would support an estate tax on your transfer of the highways to your heirs.
Societies are not subject to the estate tax, people are. Those highways are not your property taht you pass down to your kids. If the government wanted to tear up tehb highways in your area and replace them with railroad tracks, they wouldn’t have to pay you to do it.
Not always.
Cite please.
I don’t agree taht the market is particularly good at allocating wealth but its better than any other method I can think of. I don’t see why the ability to transfer that wealth tax free is a natural extension of that idea.
Now you are talking about a different method of taxation.
You’re talking about a transferred basis (or a basis of zero where basis cannot be established). I would prefer a mark to market at death.
Of course this does little to reduce dynastic accumulations of wealth, which seems to be important to some people.
But they’ll have a lot of money to pay those taxes if they sell.
You make it sounds like we just inveted this “arbitrary” tax to “slap” people with. The estate tax is almost 100 years old. Its only 3 years younger than the income tax.
I still don’t understand why a $5 million exemption isn’t enough?
So why can’t we have mark to market at death taxed on the decdant’s final tax return and a modest yet progressive estate tax on anything over some large exemption.
Fair enough.
I think one follows from the other. It’s a question of who in our society our wealth belongs to. Who owns the results of our lifetime’s of hard work? The state? To take away after we die so our heirs can start again? Or our own families?
That the market works to reward people and that is a powerful force for good. It’s a lot better than a government deciding who gets the wealth. To me, allowing inheritances reinforces that concept.
If I pay you ten million dollars for a widget, you are taxed on that money.
If I bequeath ten million dollars to you, you should be taxed on that money.
Being upset at the estate tax as some kind of double-taxation, shows a misunderstanding of how taxes work.
Aside from that the estate tax has a good societal reason for existing. It weakens dynasties.
LOL. Dude, no one is trying to kick you or Romney out of the country. Frankly, I’d much rather kick out the undocmented workers and illegal residents. I’m pointing out that there are options to protect your investments. Didn’t Eduardo from Facebook pull a similar maneuver?
I don’t know what would be a fair rate on estate taxes but let me pose this as an Economics question. I’m not an economist so please correct me if the general thrust of the question needs to be refined: In general, wealthy tend to be savers which does not contribute to the economy as much as those who spend such as the poor and middle-class. For example, it is my understanding that Bush’s first economic stimulus had the most palpable impact on the economy since he put money directly in the hands of the poor and middle-class. This is due, in part, to amount of times the money is taxed as it moves in circulation. It is also my understanding high savings rate of the wealthy contributes to inflation because their economic activity is either not taxed or taxed at a proportional lower rate. With that said, it seems reasonable to assume that abolishing the estate tax would inexorably keep the total nation’s personal wealth recycling among several dozen wealthy families with very little trickle down. I’m curious as to what you think would be the repercussions of abolishing the estate tax.
- Honesty
At the time I wrote this I was assuming that people would be in the thread arguing for a 100% death tax. I’ve seen it before on the SDMB. I’m honestly surprised no one has.
ElvisL1ves seemed to be making that argument out of the gate, but now won’t commit to giving me an actual number.
Maybe someone else far left will come along and make an argument for it.
But, you’re right. I shouldn’t have assumed the positions of my opponents and should have responded to the actual posts of those I was debating. Since then I’ve been doing so.