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for those who say "do nothings",thats a matter of opinion.While I would agree sometimes why does someone make the money they do,they get paid what society or a industry is willing to pay them,be it sports,entertainment or what ever.
Inheritance is a gift. Gifts, by definition, are unearned by their recipients. Therefore, saying an heir "does nothing" to receive his inheritance is not an opinion, but fact.
It is only natural for parents to want to pass on the remaining fruits of their life's labor to their children, and the current estate tax laws permit that very thing for nearly everyone. The question is with respect to the very wealthy. Why should anyone, through nothing more than the good fortune of birth, be presented with $50 million tax free. Invested at a real rate of return of 2%, that's a guaranteed income of $1 million per year for life in exchange for doing absolutely nothing. Is this a good way to encourage the Protestant work ethic, to support the idea of a level playing field and the idea of equal opportunity? A simple calculation of the estate tax on $50 million would yield a tax of $21.6 million, meaning that our poor example baby would have to make do with an annual income of only $588,000 for life in exchange for doing absolutely nothing. What the repeal-gang is arguing is that $588K isn't enough -- that you and I, through additional taxes directly, or through increased taxes to pay the interest on additonal borrowing, should kick in to knock that $588K back up to a million. Now I myself have done pretty well in life. I'm much better off than most, but there's still a shortfall there aginst a standard of $1 million per year. Are you willing to pay more taxes so that my income can be boosted up to a million per year? If not for me, then why for example baby?
The estate tax impacts only the rich , and it significantly impacts only the very rich, a group (as has been pointed out) whose wealth consists either significantly or primarily of unrealized capital gains that no one has ever paid one thin dime of tax on.
Everyone's been told stories of the poor family farm that had to be sold off just to pay the estate taxes on it. Go find one. Just one. There aren't any. It's a myth. And what about small businesses? Well, it's only the smart businessman who can run a small business up to the point of its being worth several million dollars, and anyone with that sort of savvy is smart enough to do something about any potential estate taxes. How about incorporating for example. How about purchasing a life insurance policy sufficent to cover any potential estate tax obligations. How about doing something at least. Only those who sit around and do nothing for decades are actually going to find themselves facing estate tax liabilities over a small business. There aren't very many of those either.
Bottom line is that arguments against the estate tax are a con job. The whole initiative is nothing more than an attempt to shift even more tax burden off the rich and onto everybody else. The rich do very well under any circumstances. How is everybody else doing these days?
A parent can give what they want. However that is still a gain to the child of income etc. The child is taxed not the parent. I clearly stated that the parent is giving to the child. WHERE did I say that he/she doesn't have that right???
WHERE?
Where did I condemn anyone?
We are not talking about family businesses, so please stop trying to say this is something about that it is not.
It's not a tax on giving.
It's a tax on receiving, just like other taxes.
Next time read the post of which you are replying to.
You seem to have an irrational attitude about this and have predone replies for a non existing post. It's like AM talk radio and their strawmen.
Heheh, sorry, but the estate tax most certainly a tax on giving. And I read every single post I respond to, thouroughly. My example was posted because usually the folks who uphold this tax get very quiet if you pose such a hypothetical scenario; they see only Paris Hilton, et. al., as mentioned below, instead of most of the folks who actually are affected by the tax. I did not see a response to MOST of my post, which included key questions about the families that ARE affected by the tax.
Fishmonger was absolutely accurate in his statement that the two sides here see entirely different scenarions when they think about this tax. However, some of the mis-understandings might be solved by researching actual families that HAVE been affected by the tax and getting their views and learning about their situations, which I have done.
There are probably statistics to support either side, depending on the source.
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