Reply #9: You're obviously not a farmer

[MadHound]

Farmers' estates are generally tied up in the land, machines, and livestock. It isn't in cash money. I live in a farming state, and a thousand acre farm can easily reach the 5 million dollar mark, or more. Thus, to pay estate taxes, the kids have to sell off part of the land, reduce their herd or crop size, which leads to less income, and soon a vicious cycle starts in that will lead to the kids having nothing.

Many of these farms were bought when land was cheap. Over the past twenty years, especially the past ten, prices for land has shot up as those in the city kept moving out to the suburbs and exurbs, driving up the land prices to heights unseen before. So yes, while on paper, it looks like a nice plush estate, in reality it is simply a small farm struggling to get by.