Trump's Estate Tax Giveaway To Rich Triggered 50% Drop In The IRS Revenue: Report

[babylonsister]

Trump's Estate Tax Giveaway To Rich Triggered 50% Drop In The IRS Revenue: Report
Billionaires, meanwhile. have doubled their collective net worth to more than $5 trillion in just 5 years.
Mary Papenfuss
By
Mary Papenfuss
11/20/2021 11:24pm EST | Updated 2 hours ago


As Republicans bellyache about Democrats not balancing the budget, a new report reveals that a massive Trump administration estate tax giveaway that particularly served the ultra-rich sparked a 50% plunge in IRS revenue from the taxes.

Estate tax payments dropped from $20 billion to just over $9 billion last year, Bloomberg reported, based on its analysis of IRS data.

American billionaires, meanwhile, have doubled their collective net worth to more than $5 trillion in just over five years.

The “dramatic decline” in estate tax revenue is largely the result of the Republicans’ 2017 tax overhaul, which doubled the amount the wealthy can pass to heirs without paying any estate tax, Bloomberg noted.

more...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/estate-tax-rich-irs-revenue-plunge_n_6199bb06e4b07fe2010cb159

[oasis]

1. Joe Manchin needs to get up to speed on this. nt

[riversedge]

5. Maybe he and or his family benefits from this law????

[paleotn]

15. Joe Manchin doesn't care about facts.

He only cares about the vagaries of WV voter opinions which may or may not have ANYTHING to do with actual facts.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

2. Republicans do this to us over and over at federal, state and local levels.

Republicans lie and deceive to get elected then reduce taxes, even when tax revenues are at optimum levels. Then, when a government function performs poorly due to reduced funding, they always say "see we told you government can't do anything as well as private companies". They then start slowly selling off parts of that agency's work load and we get to pay for the profits and get shitty services.

The worst of it all is human hubris so that when someone dares to mention returning tax rates back to normal, they are taken to the woodshed of right-wing vitriol and threats to them ensue.

Our general public just can't seem to wake up to Republican evil because of how they disguise their evil deeds....

[Scrivener7]

3. Why are we not reversing this??

[thesquanderer]

13. Maybe a fight not worth having since it expires after 2025 anyway...? (n/t)

[paleotn]

16. Good point. Pick your hills.

In the scope of the federal budget, 9B vs. 20B is almost rounding.

[Scrivener7]

25. So we transfer another 70 billion (rounding the math here of 10 billion/year from 2018 to 2025)

to people who don't need it at the expense of people who very much do.

I think that's worth preventing.

[thesquanderer]

29. We couldn't do anything about 2018, 2019, 2020, or 2021 no matter what. So... half that? (n./t)

[Scrivener7]

30. Well. Only thirty five billion (and we COULD try for a claw back, but OK, let's not consider it)

Thirty five billion in social welfare funds are worth fighting for.

Each time we say, "Oh, but we'll get 'em next time" is a time they have won. They NEVER do that with us. They do clawbacks and reversals all the time.

It's like training a dog. We have been trained to let things slip. We have trained them not to.

[TigressDem]

20. It got labeled "The Death Tax" and unfair to poor farmers trying to pass their farms on to heirs.

Of course, those aren't the people benefiting from it.

But it got a lot of push back.

[Scrivener7]

26. Another republiQan PR success that we did not effectively counter.

[Frustratedlady]

4. The Bush family was one of them, weren't they?

I recall thinking that W and the rest would be richer with the new rules.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Theft by any other name is still theft

[3Hotdogs]

7. Would a V.A.T. (Value added tax) solve some of this?

How is it working in U.k. ?

[wishstar]

9. VAT would tax everyone more rather than target the wealthiest that can afford more taxes

the 20% VAT in UK on goods and services that is passed on to consumers would be wildly unpopular here and is terribly regressive in increasing the effective tax rates of the less wealthy.

[3Hotdogs]

10. Yes, it is regressive but if accompanied by refund credits based on income....Or

Or if it was limited to high value items... houses, yachts, private jets....

[jaxexpat]

24. Every time the tax code becomes more complex it tends to become more unfair.

Your suggestion requires, as it questions, the finite definition of "luxury item". But it doesn't stop at the IRS. If you look at the problems of government closely, you'll see the government's effort to define arbitrary terms has always undermined its mission. In an effort to be more clear, the legislation spewing forth from Washington becomes only more muddied in contemporary, temporary relevance.

Suddenly it's the USSC that chooses the meaning of a term in law. Often, the interpretation, the definition, is 180 deg. from the initial intent of the legislators. It's how the second amendment evolved from a simple directive for citizens to be ready to defend and support their government into a license to arm themselves for combat and prepare to kill their fellow citizens with virtual impunity. It's how a corporation, an entity, the existence of which is evidenced only by a contract between a few private persons, is permitted to exert profound political influence as if it were a masse of regular citizens acting upon their right to support their candidates.

Historically, selective definitions so infected the original founders' document that a massive civil war was required to settle the issue. The lame legislative compromises with reality of the post-civil-war years still haunts many aspects of American life, engendering challenges to its very existence.

It's best to speak plainly with an eye toward the approaching horizon. Unlike my overwrought diatribe.

[Scrivener7]

27. Why? Why not just tax the tenth billion in income (whatever kind of income) at 90%?

Much simpler.

[oldsoftie]

11. We want EU style programs but refuse to fund it with EU-style taxes

Consumption taxes are the best way to go. All those rich people paying 3% would suddenly be paying a LOT more into the system. EVERYONE contributes in those other countries. Here, less than half our workers pay ANY income taxes. Half of federal revenue comes from income tax.

[paleotn]

21. That's regressive taxation....

because even the rich can only physically consume so much. Far more than you and I, but that difference in consumption is far less than the difference between theirs and our net worth and total, annual income. Thus, any kind of consumption tax, be it a VAT or sales tax, doesn't shift taxation adequately to the upper 5% of incomes, i.e. those who benefit far more than you and I from our national institutions and should thus pay more for those benefits. The vast majority of Elon Musk's wealth is tied up in financial assets and associated transactions, not in stuff he consumes. Financial assets and transactions are where the real money is.

How about....

- Increase long term capital gains tax rates to something much closer to ordinary income tax rates. Data shows that lowering cap gains tax rates does not increase GDP growth. It does not increase investment on useful things and does not improve the efficient allocation of capital. It just drives financial bubbles.

- A financial transaction tax. A tiny % like Senator Sanders has proposed. So small, that it's nearly invisible to 95% of Americans, yet Wall Street, particularly high frequency traders, fight the very idea tooth and nail. No one has adequately explained to me how high frequency trading actually assists in the efficient allocation of capital, the lofty end goal of financial markets....supposedly. It's fucking Las Vegas. Tax the hell out of high frequency traders.

[The Jungle 1]

8. Just more worthless trust fund babies.

These people are worthless and contribute nothing to our society. In my opinion the worst thing you can do for your children and grandchildren is leave them in a position to never contribute.

[dlk]

12. Free lunch for the rich

Because they need/deserve it?

[Efilroft Sul]

14. The people who want us to believe taxation is theft are also the biggest looters of our government.

[paleotn]

17. Am I surprised? Nope.

[Jazz Jon]

18. Extreme Viewpoints

The opinions on what estate taxes should be run in the extremes. Repubs: 0 tax. Dems: 50% tax rate. Both positions are irrational.

I am a lifelong progressive, but I side more with Repubs on this one.

Most of those estates that ends up going over the exemption limit are made up of real estate. Peoples land and houses. Possibly farms. I don't know the precise laws regarding inherited farmland though.

Estate taxes are so extreme that they end up being bad land use policy. Heirs cannot afford to pay the taxes without selling the land in question. Almost always to developers who subdivide the land into hundreds of condo units. So open space becomes structures and parking lots, eliminating wildlife habitat.

Didn't think of that, eh?

Dems have extreme views on estate taxes that are harmful. There needs to be a well reasoned moderate position.

[Jazz Jon]

23. Northeast

If you can't imagine your Mom and Dad's property busting through the exemption limit, then you don't live in Massachusetts.

Here, a 50 year old cape codder style house with 1,100 square feet siting on 0.25 acres runs $600,000 dollars.

What if your family had 10 undeveloped acres that was in the family for four generations.? Yep. There's no way you could come up with the money to pay the estate tax on that. You would be forced to sell it to the condominium developer or the golf course developer.

The trend in MA is to turn it into a private golf course complete with condominiums next to all the faiways.

[Scrivener7]

28. The estate tax kicks in at 12 million. If you can't pay the estate tax on your

vast undeveloped acreage, sell one of your ten unused lots.

And then cry me a river about how unfair it is that you have to do that.

[moose65]

31. No, Dems don't want to tax 50% of estates

It's 50% of the amount OVER the exemption, which is currently 12 million, I think. So if your estate is valued at $13 million, your heirs would pay only on the $1 million over the exemption. I think they'll survive on the rest of the proceeds.

The Republicans play on America's ignorance of marginal tax rates. When someone mentions a tax rate of 40% or 50%, people think that's the effective tax rate, and it's not. On my example above, the estate would pay taxes of $500,000 on an estate of 13 million, which is about a 4% effective tax rate. That doesn't sound so bad, now does it?

[liberal N proud]

19. Then the republicans claim Democratic policy caused it

[spanone]

22. ...K&R...

YES and I remember all the wingnuts in congress screaming about this.....

[ck4829]

32. K&R