Estate Taxes

[Capt. Pork]

There's a lot of talk about this issue in the upcoming election, and I just wanted to see what you guys thought.

Personally, I think that the current tax rates, even the ones that include only the very wealthy, are absurd. The government may have a right to tax earnings generated by wealth, but to install a system where family fortunes and family hierlooms are subject to dissolution merely to 'level the playing field', is, what I consider, a pretty cheap way of cycling the wealth back into the economy.

It's all a matter of perspective, I understand, but, as Americans, we all live with the hopes and possiblities of accumulating wealth, and if not us, then our children. True, it's not the aspiration of some to do so, and it comes to far fewer than desire it, but why should this basic freedom be subject to a law that effectively robs the majority of it from the succeeding generations(up to 80% in some cases)? The fact is, the revenue from this law is a drop in the bucket of our economy. And the concept of 'dissolving dynasties' to give other people a chance is a fallacy--because ultimately, if these 'other people' succeed, you'll be robbing them next under the same pretext. Wealth isn't just accumulated and horded, as some would argue, it can be created as well. There are new industries out there, waiting to be discovered and exploited. There are uninvented inventions. There are unwritten bestsellers. There is a dominant OS that could and should unseat microsoft by virtue of quality. For godsakes, there are untapped goldmines.

Does the government have the right to play Robin Hood?

I'd really like to hear your thoughts.

[Dago]

I agree with you completely.  Estate taxes are just another method to take money from the masses.

I wonder if you added up all the taxes we pay every year in every differant way, what would be the percentage of our salary that goes to the government?

Estate taxes are just another tax leveled on capital that has already been taxed.  I would support a repeal on estate taxes.

The Republican have been moving in this direction recently, the Democrats hate the idea of leaving us with any money in our pockets or bank accounts, they desperatly want to take it away and give it to the segment of the population that would rather loaf then work.  


dago

[Eagler]

it's a tax - get rid of it

[Maverick]

They aren't cycling the money back into the economy they are simply confiscating the acumulation of the deceased's life. This is not recycling, it's confiscation based not on need, or income, just because some politicians say you shouldn't have it.

[Capt. Pork]

Originally posted by Dago
they desperatly want to take it away and give it to the segment of the population that would rather loaf then work.  


dago

I didn't want to say it, but I commend you for doing so.

[SOB]

When my dad died, I thought the feds keeping all of his SS contributions and never giving him a dime was sufficient.  And yeah, they also told us to piss off for the piddly funeral expenses some qualify for.  When all was said and done, we skimmed just under the $650,000 total assett mark.  As it was then, maybe still is, you could use the value of the estate at the date of death or 6 months from the date of death, and anything up to $650,000 wasn't taxable - and anything above was.  If the estate is worth more than $650k, the first $650k is still not taxed, just the amt over that.  Yearly income of the estate was taxed just like personal taxes.  It worked out OK for us, but regardless...estate tax is rediculous.  Just one of the many ways the feds look to double-tax income / property / your mom's gimpy toe / etc.

[Eagler]

Originally posted by Dago
..., the Democrats hate the idea of leaving us with any money in our pockets or bank accounts, they desperatly want to take it away and give it to the segment of the population that would rather loaf then work.  


dago

you mean their voting base...

[Fatty]

Just make sure you or your parents accidentally die in 2010 and all is well.

[Dago]

you mean their voting base...

Bingo!

[miko2d]

Capt. Pork: Does the government have the right to play Robin Hood?
I'd really like to hear your thoughts.

 Any coercive confiscation of wealth by the government is illegitimate, but the destructive impact of estate taxes is more fundamental than income or consumption taxes.

 Income or consumption taxes as well as inflation of money supply if not overburdening do not necessarily destroy society - if rationally managed they would only slow down progress and development.
 The ruinous policies like discouragement of savings and breeding of the underclass.are not the direct result of the taxes but rather the policies.

 Not so with the estate taxes.  A level of civilisation of society is nothing but its level of future-orientedness. A society that plans and invests for the future accumulates capital - develops, grows and progresses.
 A society that lives by the current day and does not care about future loses capital to consumption - it degrades, wastes environment and goes extinct.
 Modern dogma atributes civilisation to wealth.
 It is actually the other way around. Abstaining from current consumption/leisure and investing into future (labor/capital/education) is how civilised people consistently become wealthy - elite.
 For the purpose of this discussion I will call "underclass" the people who are present-oriented - who do not accumulate capital or even borrow to consume. A millionaire who wastes his fortune is an underclass while a chinese sweatshop laborer is an elite because her income goes towards education of her children and they will (likely) get wealthy - as the investment of their education pays off. Individual results may vary but the families that preserve the level of civilisation are consistent in their results - unless the state prevents the from realising the fruits of their civilised behavior!

  Obvioulsy society consists of people and most people in society are not civilised - which is why most stay poor or became relatively poor. The level of cvilisation of society depends on who exerts more conrol on the future of society - the elite or underclass.
 The elite are planning for the future and they want the capital value of their posessions to increase - which usually means they also want the capital value of their country to increase.

 With totalitarian democratic government controlled by the wishes of mass underclass, that change every 2-4 years, there is no possible civilising influence coming from that direction. There is no continuation of short-term policies, let alone planning for generations. There is a lot of rhetoric to that effect but it is just not possible. Any politician that would actually sacrifice curent consumption for future gain will lose to a politician which will bring "goods" now while promising the future.
 ("Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods." -- H. L. Mencken)

 So the opposite is true. The governments borrow to consume, discourage investment (in capiatl and children) and encourage consumption by promising retrement, etc. and maintaining artificially low interest rates, by degrading savings through inflation and by confiscating it through taxation.

 The only way for intelligent civilised individuals/families to exert civilising  influence in society is via private effort. Wealth is power in free society, even if it could not be used for coersion as the state power. Wealthy people can finance production, publishing, research, investment, education, studies, political campains, etc.
 Confiscating most of the family estate every generation practically cuts the civilising efforts of such families at the knees. They do not have an opportunity/incentive to plan for more than a lifetime where the society is concerned. They can still invest in forms of capital that is not subject of taxation - like education of their children (some countries tax that too) but that is very limited and the society in general benefits much less from those choices. The children of such people tend to be discouraged from being civilised and towards living in the current moment.

 The civilised and civilising people were always in the way of socialist overnments whos well-ment policies brought down the level of civilisation.

 miko