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Explain why what someone has worked for their entire life should go to the government upon their death. That wealth has already been taxed.
Here's why: it's to prevent the formation of a permanent aristocracy.
I'm all for eliminating the estate tax below certain limits (no tax on say the first 100k). But we need an estate tax to prevent concentration of wealth at the top, said wealth concentration undermines democracy (as we have seen in the last 30 years).
For a total estate? No, it's not. I'll refer you to post #2 to see why it isn't. Hint: include all property, houses, land, cars, furnishings, stocks, bonds, bank accounts, insurance policies, etc, etc. Anything of intrinsic value.
You really are going there, ok, being that I understand how this works having done it is 2016, I will remind you that all those properties can and often are liquidated for the cash value, the value is what matters. You have a different definition of rich than the vast majority of Americans.
Here's why: it's to prevent the formation of a permanent aristocracy.
You support this kind of retributive redistribution, this use of government coercion in service of some nebulous social engineering goal, and you see it as righteous and just that the government gets to create these laws, use force to enforce them, and reap the financial rewards from them? You think concentrating such power in this institution is the way we ought to go?
You have a lot more faith in and reverence for the government than I.
It seems to me that Bernie Sanders asked a very good question, but never got an adequate response. So I'm curious to hear some good Conservative responses. Why should we repeal the estate tax? I'm assuming that you don't want to raise the National Debt even further, so the billions of dollars in revenue that are lost will have to be gained back in some other way, presumably budget cuts in other areas, as Sanders indicates - or, somehow, the tax cuts to the wealthy are supposed to generate extra revenue?
"The wealthiest family in America gets a $52 billion tax break as a result of the repeal of the estate tax," Sanders said.
It's not just death. It's the transfer of the wealth to people that DID NOT earn it and have not paid taxes on it themselves.
If I'm the person who is dead should in not be my choice who it is that has earned what I have acquired?
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