He could do, but making them co-owners counts as a gift. If two kids are made joint owners with pops of the hypothetical $20m business, then they have been gifted $6.67m each, with gift/estate tax consequences.
Of course, when the gift of ownership is given, the father can take steps to justify a lower valuation, e.g. put restrictions on resale, as already mentioned in this thread, to minimize gift/estate tax issues.
My wife and her brother are accumulating partial owership in their family business through this sort of mechanism.
Let’s recap: I asked you what your position on this issue was and you have refused to answer. Instead you ask me what I think the death tax should be. I answered you: It should be zero. Now, while still refusing to even state what you think it should be, you are insisting that I make further arguments for you?
I don’t think so. If you can’t be bothered to even state what your position on the issue is, why should I continue answering any of your questions?
If that’s your opinion, then feel free to walk away.
I think calling the tax a “death tax” accurately summarizes it and why many people don’t agree with it. It doesn’t demonize anyone.
I have listened to my opponents in this debate and even agreed with them at times. I certainly am not feigning ignorance to score cheap points. If you cite exactly what you mean by this I will respond in good faith.
It is telling that despite outnumbering me ten to one you need to resort to this sort of insults rather than just debating honestly.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out of the thread.
Since your “principled stand” is based on a theory that only the senile are paying estate taxes, it kind of does matter how many people are impacted.
The estate tax arguably is the most sensible thing we do as a society. The fact that Sam Stone argues against it by suggesting millionaires will go to Canada to die pretty much speaks for itself.
In fact, *nobody *pays estate taxes. The dead can’t, because they’re dead. The living can’t, because they haven’t received their windfalls yet. High-net-worth estates do, but they’re not people, my friend.
Collecting taxes from people who got a windfall by the virtue of their birth makes a lot of sense to me. We have to collect taxes from somebody, taking it from people who didn’t lift a finger to earn it seems as fair as anything.
Your arguments are silly. Continue calling them death taxes to your detriment. Taking the position of a spoiled millionaire is no way to debate, nor is attempting to characterize your opponents when obviously facts point the other way a good way to get your point across. If you ever feel like seriously debating the merits of the Estate Tax, by all means go ahead, but continue to be belligerent and it shows that you have no interest in an honest exchange of ideas.
Tell that to Mitt Romney and every other person who opposes them. They will be called death taxes forever by about half the people in this country. You should get used to it.
So, just opposing death taxes makes one unsuitable even to be debated? Having the nerve to disagree with you on this issue makes one untouchable? That’s a nice open mind you’ve got there.
To my mind, there are certain phrases that, when used in a debate, mark the user as a complete unthinking ideologue, who has come to their conclusions not through logic and fact, but rather through a rigid philosophical position that can never be shifted though reasoning.
“Death Taxes” is one such phrase.
It is therefore generally unwise to engage in people who use such phrases as they are unlikely to respond to logic, reason and rational argument.
No, they are called death taxes by a bunch of politicians and some politically overwrought private citizens. Use of the term in debate absolutely poisons the well (though like you I have no idea what YogSosoth is talking about otherwise).
Like others in this thread, I can’t take someone seriously who uses a term like “death tax”, because it shows that they are not trying to argue honestly. It is NOT the name of the tax. It’s a term popularized by Republican pollster Frank Luntz specifically to reframe the conversation and put it in as emotionally negative a light as possible.
The phrase makes no sense. You can’t tax death. What do you base the tax on? What is the value of death? It’s an estate tax. It is based on the value of an estate.
Would you take me seriously if I constantly referred to it as a “spoiled rich bastards tax”, or an “undeserved inheritance tax”? (Note that I don’t think the inheritors are necessarily spoiled rich bastards, nor do I think of their inheritance as necessarily undeserved. I’m simply making a point about the use of emotionally laden terms as opposed to the actual names of things.)
I wish we could have a rule against such things being used in places other than the pit, but I suppose it would be hard to define such terms. Maybe instead we could all just agree act like adults and call things by their proper names.
Romney? Yes, if he used the term “death tax” in a debate, I think that means that he has made up his mind, and is not willing to listen honestly to an opposing viewpoint. As a politician of course, that defines him. Politicians do not debate “honestly”, they are debating for an audience to get their spin across.
And although half the country may vote Republican, I doubt very much if half the country would use that phrase in a debate. So I reject your estimate of “half”.
Many certainly would - and yes, I would say that they have not come to the debate with the requisite knowledge, facts and openness to rational argument. More likely they have come to the debate armed with talking points, rationalizations and poorly constructed arguments gleaned from shallow sources such as talk radio.
In a week, it’s likely that he will, if the subject comes up.
He did use it in his official policy statement, which I’ve liked to several times in this thread.
Sure. Maybe it’s 60%, maybe it’s 40%, but suffice it to say there is a vast number of people who dislike the tax and call it by that name.
This is very sad for you. To live in a society that is so brainwashed that legions of it’s citizens are not thinking at all based on facts and aren’t rational.
You realize that it’s possible for people in good faith to just have different opinions from you, right? That it’s possible for someone to be rational and open to argument and look at the same facts as you and come to a different conclusion?
Because the way that your are coming across, you genuinely don’t seem able to grasp that. I disagree with various groups of people in this country about lots of things. I think that pro-death penalty people are wrong. I think that pro-life people are wrong. I think that pro-death tax people are wrong. But I don’t think they all suffer from some sort of inability to function rationally simply for disagreeing with me or using language to frame the issues differently than me.
