Death Tax, does it apply to you?

[Demonaut]

asked my coworkers and few knew the answer

[enki23]

1. yes. it provides resources for our common good. that applies to me.

it also helps to put a check, though ever so small, upon the further entrenchment of the american aristocracy.

[napi21]

2. I only wish I had worries like that!

Hell no, it doesn't apply to me! I keep telling my kids they are all in the will, so I hope they won't leave them too many bills!

You really need to tell your coworkers if they don't have an estate in excess of $2.5 Million, it doesn't matter to them!

[gmoney]

3. It's the ESTATE TAX...

...not the DEATH tax.

Only 2% of estates pay ANY estate tax, and even those still get to pass on MILLIONS of dollars to their family, NOT COUNTING insurance benefits.

How the pukes sold this as a "populist" issue is one of the great con jobs of all time.

[Demonaut]

6. it's easy , give it a negative name and don't explain it

like "partial birth abortion"

[SharonAnn]

13. And it's on Unearned Income and usually previously Untaxed Income

Income that's never before been taxed. Hmmm, shouldn't it be taxed at some point?

Income that's Unearned isn't sacred, is it? So if you work for your money you should pay taxes but if you inherit a lot of money you shouldn't pay taxes? Does that make sense?

As Al Franken says, we shouldn't tax "the most productive members of our society, the children of the wealthy."

[Yupster]

26. That's not correct at all

DU is at its worst on economic issues where just plain wrong or confused information is posted all the time.

Estate tax is not on income, it's on estate.

You may end up paying income tax too, and most estates pay way more income tax than estate tax.

If someone inherits an IRA, it's entirely taxable as income to the beneficiary when taken out.

If someone inherits a non-qualified annuity, the gain is taxable as income to the bene.

I think that's what you're thinking of, but those are not part of the estate tax. That's a different animal.

[janx]

46. You are absolutely right--though I don't know the lingo.

My mother died. Ten thousand dollars is coming my way via an IRA.

I don't have an IRA to put the money into. In addition, I'm making far less than I did a few years ago and have 2 kids in college, making their own way but needing some money from time to time, and I also have a mortgage, etc.

If I need the money to go toward these things, I have to take a hit on the cash--I won't get anything like the ten thousand.

My youngest still needs a car so that she can work to support herself. She is 16.

This isn't some elite situation. Ten thousand dollars gets taxed out of all imagination if you don't reinvest it as prescribed by the government.

[AP]

54. IRA's are a special beast. It's money that wasn't taxed originally under

an agreement between the IRA owner and the government that it would be taxed later -- preferably when the owner would be in a lower income bracket at retirement.

It was never the intention of anyone that that money would never get taxed at all.

If you're worth more that 1.5 mil, there are plenty of ways to take money out of the estate and pass it without being taxed (or having it taxed at very low rates).

An IRA isn't one of them.

[TahitiNut]

57. Nonsense.

Any inherited investments (equities, real property, etc.) get "stepped up" at the time the estate is formed, and all unrealized capital gains up to that point go untaxed.

An IRA is a very special case of money that was never taxed - that's what made it 'qualified' as an IRA - so taxing the proceeds was ALWAYS part of the deal.

But the INHERITOR never worked for it! Since the "R" stands for "retirement" and "I" stands for "individual," where's the unfairness when the "individual" doesn't "retire" and soembody else collects?

What it sounds like to me now is that the "death tax" is 100% but the recipient of the tax is just the inheritor(s) - most often having done absolutley nothing to earn it. At least the government enforces the laws and regulations that give 'title' to such assets and enforces "ownership" entitlements.

[Yupster]

67. You are replying to me with "nonsense", but

I don't see where you disagree with anything I said.

Was I incorrect somewhere?

Were you replying to me in error?

[TahitiNut]

69. I was replying to what I interpreted as supporting the old canard ...

... about an estate tax being "double taxation." IMHO, nothing could be further from the truth. Even ignoring the idiocy of ignoring the transfer of wealth, people make that claim under the misapprehension that an estate subject to tax is an accumulation of earned income. It's not. (Especially not by the inheritor.) When we're talking about taxable estates, it's over $1.5 million this year and $2 million in 2006. (Amounts over that aren't accumulated from labor these days, unless it's the wretched excesses paid to a very, very few.)

Unrealized capital gains on real property and on equities are but two of the major components of such estates. Those gains, up to the time the estate is formed, are never taxed. (This is the single correction effective in 2010: elimination of the "step up.") Even when the estate contains money instruments accumulated through investments and taxable exchanges, we're still not talking about earned income .. but of income already taxed at preferential rates lower than that applied to earned income.

It's George Dubya Bush's "ownership class" (the top 1%; the landed gentry of the plantation class) who're the sole beneficiaries of tax-free inheritance of estates over $1 million.

The coming elimination of the estate tax is, imho, right at the top of my list as one of the most obscene, predatory, idiotic, ethically bankrupt and morally septic acts of a treasonous Congress. It's a kick in the teeth to all the "losers of the sperm lottery": 99% of America.

[Yupster]

70. Okay

I didn't say anything about double taxation one way or the other.

[Arroyo]

4. Personally

I don't care how much they tax me after I'm dead.

[0rion]

7. +1

[Demonaut]

11. you need an estate worth more than

on edit, 1.5 million now, two million in 2006

[janx]

37. That's not true. When my mother died, she was by no means

rich.

Any money that a parent has saved gets taxed if the parent is not careful to have the taxes taken out beforehand.

[Demonaut]

39. must be state taxes or taxes due on the property, did you check the link?

[napi21]

55. I'm sure it's state taxes. My mother died in 2000. Her estate was

valued at $145,000 which included her house, the contents, and a mutual fund. There were NO Federal Taxes! There were however Pennsylvania Taxes. As I understand it, that's another reason why many people move to Florida. There are no State estate taxes there.

[TahitiNut]

60. Pennsylvania is one of the few states with an Estate Tax.

There are on 12, soon to be only 10 ...

Connecticut (will be phased out by 2005)
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisiana (will be phased out in July 2004)
Maryland
Nebraska (county inheritance tax only)
New Jersey
Ohio
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Tennessee

[Throckmorton]

87. Yes, and Connecticut follows the Federal Guidline of 1.5 mill.

to the surviving spouse at least. Its lower amounts to the Class A, B, and C, survivors.

Unfortunately, I've just been there and done that with my late wifes estate. I did however have to pay a probate "fee" that was equal to 0.3% of the value of her half of the estate.

I paid not estate taxes on an estate valued at around 200K. (400 K total for the two of us)

[TahitiNut]

90. I don't believe a spouse is subject to the same federal estate taxation.

That runs into state community property laws and other considerations. AFAIK, a spousal inheritance is handled much more liberally.

[flpoljunkie]

83. Yes, and if you are married, your estate passes untaxed to spouse; until

you die, there will be no estate tax paid.

[alcuno]

5. How can a dead person be taxed? I am fortunate that I will pay taxes upon

inheriting my parents' estate. The vast majority of Americans will not have such luck in receiving a large sum of money through absolutely no efforts of their own.

[JanMichael]

8. No it doesn't and no it won't.

I've seen the sliding scales and I know that for a fact.

And if it did? Then WhoopdyDooforfuckingme.

[HawkerHurricane]

9. Nope.

If my mother should die (Gawds forbid), I will inherit 'the family farm'. Family Farms are exempt from estate taxes.

[mrbill]

80. the "family farm" deal is tricky

They do get some added breaks if they meet a few qualifying standards.

In addition to the basic $1.5 million "exemption", with the proper paperwork a 'farm' can get up to an additional $800,000 exemption.

Appraisal of the property is another sticky wicket. This is especially critical when urban blight along with high land prices approacheth.

A qualifying 'family farm' can be appraised at an agricultural value rather than the higher fair market value.

They get some breaks but they are not totally exempt.

[HawkerHurricane]

94. Since the farm has already been divided...

into smaller chunks (between my mom and her 3 brothers) and is nowhere near an urban area, I'm pretty sure it's not worth enough to trigger the estate tax... It wasn't in 1986 (when my grandfather died and left it to grandma), it sure isn't now.

[olddem43]

10. I discussed this with my children earlier today -

I thought the current tax-free limit on Inheritance is 1.5 million each. I told them that they were in no danger - the three of them would have to divide the 50 dollars equally. No worry about Menendez action either! They didn't feel too sorry for the people so unfortunate as to inherit in excess of 1.5 million.

[Yupster]

12. It already did to me

My aunt died, and since the government took $ 180,000 death tax, we all got smaller shares than we should have.

So, it applied to me, my mother and father, brother and sister, nieces and nephews, and the church, the animal rescue center, the greyhound adoption place and about a dozen more charities mostly all having to do with the environment or wildlife.

People make the mistake of thinking the death tax hits the dead person. It doesn't. They're dead. It hits all their friends, and relatives and charities.

That's why the 1 % figure is so stupid.

I'm sure I'm not counted in that 1 %, but I've already been effected by it.

[Demonaut]

14. how much was her estate worth?

[Yupster]

20. Somewhere between 1.0 and 1.5 million

It was when the limit was still 600,000.

I live in Texas and my aunt lived in NYC, so I don't have all the details. My father was the executor of the estate.

I'm not sure of the exact size because I don't know the ownership of the property. Some was in her name, some was jointly owned with my father, and some was turned over before her death.

Anyway, the lawyer gave each heir a written accounting which included the 180,000 estate tax figure.

My share was short $ 18,000 because of the tax as I had a 10 % share.

[Yupster]

22. Just as a sentimental aside

my aunt was a truly wonderful woman.

She never married. She lived upstairs from us in a two family home with my grandmother.

She always had a good job, and always saved something.

Her estate came completely from just saving money every month for 60 years.

She took vacations around the world in her older years and told us great stories.

She had season tickets to the Met, and took me often as a 10-17 year old. She gave generously to charity, and taught me to care.

Just before her death, she quilted a blankie for my son. He still goes to bed with it now at age seven.

It's been six years since she died, and I lived 2000 miles away, but I still think of her often.

[talleyJudy]

15. And here is an example of a $120,000....ESTATE

Great Uncle died while a resident of Michigan, my Mom is sole heir and a resident of Wisconsin.

His total estate was 120K, (by the way folks, he had paid income tax on all of that amount as he earned it).

The state of Mich. got 16K and the feds got 10K. Windfall for both governments just because someone died owning a house, car, and personal effects.

And you don't call that a DEATH TAX, but rather an "ESTATE" TAX ???

Some ESTATE....

[Nite Owl]

17. The first $650,000

is not taxed at least by the Feds. Maybe he owed some other taxes but not on that small of an estate. I hope you had a lawyer.

[Yupster]

24. It may have been in an IRA or annuity

then the heirs would have to pay income tax on it.

That's a different beast than estate taxes though.

[alcuno]

27. Exactly. The money was sheltered from taxes until it was withdrawn.

[Demonaut]

21. the estate has to be worth more than 1.5 MILLION

http://www.lawyers.com/lawyers/A-1001971-LDC/TAX+ESTATE.html

[K-W]

29. Are you joking?

It is an estate. Thats exactly what estates are. The government taxes money during transfers. It taxes when you get income it taxes when you spend money. Nobody should act like it is some universal travesty that they tax money when it is inherited.

Death has absolutely nothing to do with it. They didnt tax anyone because they died. It taxes the ESTATE, not the dead person. The estate changes hands, it is a transfer of wealth.

So it is perfectly reasonable to tax it and the reason they certainly should tax it is because it causes wealth accumulation. The process by which wealth, that ideally should be active in the economy, becomes locked up in large individual and family savings which hurts the economy greatly and if not checked will destroy the economy.

So step back from your emotions and think. This isnt a death tax at all. Dead people cant be taxed. The person looses no money while he is a citizen of this country and of this world.

[alcuno]

32. Inheriting money should be no different from lottery winnings.

It's free money that is UNEARNED by the individual.

[AP]

43. Kevin Phillips argues that estates should be taxed as income to the...

...recipient.

That would encourage testators wishing to reduce taxes paid on their estates to leave their estates to many many people and to give the people in the lowest income tax brackets the most money.

That would help deconcentrate wealth and it would help pass money to the people who need it.

If you want it to be taxed at 0%, then you'd give it to non profits, or to minors with no other income in 5-10K bundles.

[AP]

41. That is so confused. Just because you die in a year you had earned income

and you haven't paid all your taxes on it doesn't give you a right to not pay taxes on your income.

If that were the case, then old people or the terminally ill would probably not pay estimated taxes in the hope that they die and get to keep the money.

It's not a windfall for a government to collect taxes on people that they'd owe if they were alive.

And I'm not clear what you're saying. It seems like you're saying that that your Great Uncle owned taxes on his income in the year he died. That's not the same thing as an estate tax. And your uncle didn't have an estate big enough to get taxed by the Feds and it's probably not big enough to get taxed by Mich either.

[Yupster]

45. This is a completely different issue

than the estate tax. This would be income tax.

[TreasonousBastard]

18. So?

Is this money any of you worked for or earned?

If you hit the lottery, you pay taxes on it.

[TreasonousBastard]

16. They're gonna tax me to DIE???!!!

[K-W]

19. Please dont ever call it the death tax, even for effect.

Thats a bad meme.

[Demonaut]

23. its the name given by the administration, nt

[K-W]

25. Which is exactly why you shouldnt use it.

It is a tax on the inheritance. It is taxing the people who are reciving large quantities of money in a non-capitalistic transfer of money that serves only to consolidate wealth.

It is a utterly logical societal control on wealth accumulation and a great way to get money without really hurting anyone. It is a luxery that society lets people transfer wealth after death.

[Demonaut]

28. thats EXACTLY why I use the term, its misunderstood by most americans

[K-W]

30. Right but the very fact of calling it a death tax hurts our side.

It is the main reason alot of people oppose it, they buy the misleading idea that it is a tax on dead people. That it is the government robbing a grave. This is a very persuasive mischarecterization and we cant play along with it.

[Demonaut]

31. it never hurts our side to be informed nt

[K-W]

33. Exactly, and Death Tax is an uninformed term.

It is disinformation, and using it, spreads it.

[Demonaut]

34. uh, this is going nowhere. If I wanted to call it by its rightful name

I would have, I wanted to see who understands it and obviously you do, but as I have said FEW UNDERSTAND IT! ok, now do you understand?

[K-W]

38. I completely understand, but

most people know what an estate tax is. Death Tax is a pretty recent spin word that many people dont even know is the same thing as the estate tax.

Meanwhile you are reinforcing a dangerous spin-word.

But I do understand that some people only know it as that. And youd have to use it, I was more saying you shouldnt use it here on the forum, and making sure you understood, which clearly you do, that the term is spin and shouldnt be spread lightly.

[Demonaut]

40. whatever

[Bogus W Potus]

35. The estate tax is a fair tax

If there were no estate tax, rich families could pass along large sums of money from generation to generation WITHOUT paying taxes on their capital gains. This is ridiculous. That's why we have the estate tax. Becuase we don't have 150 years to wait until the chain ends. Government needs the money now.

[Yupster]

42. The problem is

it doesn't hit the truly wealthy that you want to hit.

The Kennedys and Rockefellers won't pay. They'll have their money wrapped up in trust funds.

It hit people like me and my nephews and nieces who were hardly accumulating huge amounts of wealth.

Today it wouldn't hit us. I support the raise to $ 2 million or whatever it is today. I think that's the Democratic senators position too.

[Bogus W Potus]

44. The Kennedys and Rockefellers do have to pay estate taxes

That's a common Republican meme that they don't.

[Yupster]

50. Only on what's in their individual name

which ain't much.

[K-W]

48. Thats a seperate issue.

The estate tax SHOULD get those people, they just found a loophole. We should close the loophole, not weaken the tax as a response.

Inheritances of a million dollars arent neccessarily inheritances of the very rich, but they are large inheritances.

[Yupster]

51. A million is a lot, but

it gets split so many ways.

My nephews and nieces got about 10,000 each. Do we really have to hit that with an inheritance tax?

And we have a very small family.

I bet some million dollar estates have 50 or more heirs.

[K-W]

59. I could support a tax that went off the size of individual gifts,

as long as it was very progressive and didnt have loopholess.

[AP]

84. Tax it as income to the recipient, not the testator.

That's the best way to do it.

A large individual gift would boost the recipient into a higher bracket.

And you can always disclaim a gift, and it would then pass as if you were died intestate (on to your heirs, who are presumably in a lower bracket because, eg, they're kids). You can do this already, and people frequently do it because they don't want their own estates to increase into the estate-taxable range, or because they don't want assets that would be sold and taxed at higher rates because of their wealth.

[TahitiNut]

65. I don't want to "hit" anyone.

The inheritance of a government-created entitlement to more wealth than the working poor can accumulate in a lifetime is exactly what feudal monarchies were overthrown for, at a GREAT cost in blood.

It's nothing but a "sperm lottery" and, like any lottery should be taxed at ordinary income rates.

(Notice that the "capital gain" of a lottery ticket doesn't get the favorable treatment of other investments? I guess that's because the rich don't buy lottery tickest.)

[AP]

72. Even trust corpus has to vest at some point (and when they vest, the ...

... money people receive is taxed as income).

I agree with Kevin Phillips. Estates should be taxed as income to the person who recieves the money (and, ideally, at progressive, but slightly higher rates than earned income).

600,000 was too low because a lot of middle class people had houses worth that much and those people NEVER thought they'd die with estates large enough to be taxed.

Had they been prepared, they could have spent 500 bucks on a lawyer to protect their estates from estate tax. Rather than raise the limits (and presuming the Kevin Phillips proposal wasn't adopted) I think it would have been better for the government to have given personal residences different treatment rather than increase the size of the exemption.

That way you could have avoided the suprise many middle class people were experiencing, but you wouldn't lose the positive effects of a reasonalbe limitation on the size of the exemption (which is encouraging people to take steps that don't result in the concentration of large amounts of wealth, untaxed, in the hands of people who didn't work to earn it, and encouraging them to put it to uses which served to spread it widely and in charitable, socially valuable ways).

[sandnsea]

76. Trusts are for everybody

The money could have been set up in a trust. Happens all the time. You sound like George Bush. Don't have taxes on the wealthy cuz they know how to dodge taxes anyway. So the rest of us should all be stuck with the tax bill because we can't afford expensive accountants? :eyes:

[BiggJawn]

36. Heh-heh...That's funny, estate tax....funny...

My mom cut me out of her will, and my dad might get pissed and do the same thing sometimne in the next 30 years or so before he checks out.

Anyway, he's not worth over a million dollars. And beside, I have a bro to split it with.

But I was talking to a coupla ditto-heads I know, and they were going on about the "DEATH TAX" and how Chimp was gonna do away with it, unlike "That KlinTOON"...Now, these are truck drivers, one of who gets the Earned Income Credit every year. I say "so, you guys are in line to inheirit a coupla million bucks each?" "Uh, no..." "Oh, the way you're all worried about this so-called "Death tax" I figured each of you was gonna get a LOT of money someday...Rush forgot to tell you it doesn't kick in until the Estate's worth over a million, didn't he?" "Uh, No, he didn't say nothin' about that...."

[Yupster]

47. In my opinion,

the 600,000 figure was far too low though.

I think Bush was right to raise it.

[bleedingheart]

56. There are people who might have to work 20 years to make $600K

and yet you think that is a small figure to inherit?

How about we not tax income until people hit the cumulative total of $600K...that would truly be a gift to the poor and middle class...

[Yupster]

58. Now how many people

leave their entire estate to one person?

Other than spousal situations, which I don't think anyone disagrees with, I've never heard of anyone leaving their entire $ 600,000 estate to one person. Usually it's split up in 20 or more different parts.

As a stockbroker, I see a lot of estates.

[K-W]

61. Its still alot of money.

If someone wants to spread it out, thats their business in thier wills, it doesnt change the fact that it is a large sum of money being transferred.

[bleedingheart]

62. and my brother-in-law is a trust attorney who handles estates

worth in excess of $5 million dollars...and after working with the recipients of these types of trusts he thinks they would have been better off with nothing.

For instance the fellow who got hundreds of thousands a year in trust income who wanted to break the trust because it just wasn't enough...

The individual who divides their estate decides how many people are left money. Those who divide it among a greater number of individuals are doing so to be fair and because they want to remember everyone... but once again, if I got $10K I would be grateful not resentful, if anything I would most likely miss the person who was generous enough to give me the money.

[Yupster]

66. I agree

Obviously, as a stockbroker, I have no problem with wealthy people, but there are some groups I can't stand working with.

The conspicuous consumers are one. The guys who can't make it with four mansions. They just have to have that fifth one. Or the 25 cars. That disgusts me.

The trusts are another one.

I'd love it if trusts were made illegal. Assets need to belong to someone, not an artificial entity.

[BiggJawn]

81. That's 16 year's income for me.

Wow. 16 years to make what most CEO's pull in 2 years or less....

Guess it depends on how many Lexii you have in the garage...

[bleedingheart]

49. A lot more people leave behind debt

i don't expect to get anything...so if I get even $10 I will be pleasantly suprised.

The money my in-laws and my mother have is for them...if they die and leave their descendents cash...well rather than complain I will pay my taxes and count myself lucky.

[bleedingheart]

52. Anyone who complains about getting money makes me sad

So your parent works all their life...they save some money and technically they might have been saving it to give away or they may have been saving it because they were worried about the future.

So they die...and it is sad....but wait...there is an inheritance and you have to pay taxes on it to transfer their wealth to you...and somehow people complain...

There are kids in foster care that will never have parents...they get shoved through the system until they emerge as 18 year old "independents"...no inheritance for them.

There are kids whose parents have nothing and perhaps leave behind debt...no inheritance for them....

There are parents who have to live with their kids because they were laborers and they didn't make enough money...no inheritance there...

So when someone inherits $1 million dollars...and they complain...I think it sounds a bit selfish... there are people out there who would have to work most of their lives and they won't even make that cumulatively and yet to complain...it just seems a sin.

Perhaps those taxes you pay will go into Head Start or perhaps it will provide the funding for a young struggling couple to buy a home.....

[TahitiNut]

53. If there was ever a tax that was totally fair, it's the estate tax.

And the greedy, obscene assholes in D.C. have somehow sold (with lies and deceit) the idea of repealing it for 2010 (and beyond if the 10-year tax bill is extended).

It's fucking nuts that anyone should get a tax-free wealth windfall from the death of another person - and others pay taxes on being underpaid for their own labor at rates over 30%.

Get money from your own labor? Pay federal taxes over 30%.
Get money from the labor of others? Pay federal taxes of less than 15%.
Get money from the death of another? Pay no taxes.

That's just fucking nuts.
It's a plantation tax policy.

Does it effect me? Absolutely! The people who benefit the most pay the least and ride on the backs of labor. Every time the rich pay less for their own wealth the "lower 99%" get FUCKED!

[UdoKier]

63. There is no such thing. Bad way to start a thread

...with a false right-wing talking point.

It is the estate tax, and it applies to less than 2% of all estates...


What's your point?

[Demonaut]

64. the point is that many folk dont know what the so called "death tax" is

and this is to engage those who do to offer the proper interpretation of the Estate Tax, I've asked many coworkers and friends what it is and would it affect them and almost to a person they all thought it affected them, these are people whos incomea are 60,000 or less a year

[UdoKier]

68. Okay, gotcha.

But the tax is on assets, so the income isn't all that relevant.

I would put it this way:

"the only people who are affected by the estate tax are those who stand to inherit so much that they may very well never have to work again."

This soes NOT hit the small family farmer, the little shop or restaurant owner, or the garden-variety frugal saver/investor.

[Yupster]

71. So if a cousin of the deceased gets

a 1 % share of the $ 2 million estate, or $ 20,000, you would say that person would never have to work again?

This is not an odd occurance. This exact thing already happened to my family.

We all in my family paid the estate tax and we are all still working.

Things are somewhat better today, as when we had our inheritance, the limit before the estate tax kicked in was only $ 600,000. Today it is well over a million.

I think the disconnect with many is that when they hear someone died with a $ 1 million dollar estate, they assume that means someone inheritted a million dollars.

That would be very unusual.

More usual is that the $ 1 million is split into 30 not at all equal parts with some people getting 25 % of it and others getting 1 %.

The guy who gets the 1 % or $ 10,000 is not going to forever live a life of luxury.

This is the same disconnect when people say the tax only effects 1 % of the people. They mean the dead guy. The 30 heirs all know the 1 % number is deceiving. They know they were effected by their own personal experience and they know they're not part of any 1 %.

[UdoKier]

73. Even if you got the whole 20 grand...

You'd still have to work. The tax is not that onerous, and there are ways of passing on your wealth before you die if you're so obsessed with the estate tax.

I'd be a lot more disappointed about a measly 10 grand inheritance than I would be about the government getting a cut.

I am not ideologically married to the estate tax. I would support its repeal if it were offset with income taxes on the wealthy.

Personally I think taxing estates is a good thing, The children of the wealthy (even if there are THIRTY of them) should make their own way and not look to Mummy and Daddy to leave them everything. The vast majority of people die with next to nothing. You should count yourself blessed.

[AP]

74. Can't offset elimination of estate tax with higher income tax on wealthy.

Money changes hands many different ways: gifts, unearned income (cap gains, dividens), earned income, etc.

If you pick any one method of changing hands and chose not to tax it, then you will encourage the flow of wealth through that untaxed method (and consequently will limit the amount of money that passes through the taxed channels).

If you didn't tax estates, America would go straight back to Europe, pre-1900s. Rich people would have their kids marry and they would amass huge fortunes and, consequently, political power (in an American economy which would shrink thanks to the inefficiencies created by a society which rewards wealth with wealth, rather than one that rewards work and innovation with wealth).

[DaveSZ]

75. Why are you giving credibility to a heritage foundation meme?

?

[AP]

79. Whazza? I think you've misread my post.

Which idea do you think is right wing?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't have progressive EARNED or UNEARNED INCOME TAX.

I'm saying that you can't expect even higher rates on super high levels of income to make up for no tax on estates. That's like treating a broken leg by putting a case on your arm.

Reread my posts in this thread.

[Yupster]

88. Correct, if I get 20,000

I'm going to have to keep working either way whether there is an estate tax or not.

So your above statement about the estate tax only effecting those who never have to work again, is off the wall by my own family's recent experiences.

Personally, I think the senatorial Democrats have it just about right. They want to eliminate the tax up to 2-3 million or so.

I think that would hit the people we rally want to hit.

Also, though I honestly got less than I thought I would in the inheritance due to a mistake in my aunt's will, I have not been disappointed. I keep saying to myself, that it was generous of my aunt to give me anything, and I am thankful for anything I get.

[Elginoid]

77. Not until the in-laws kick it...

my side of the family is sadly lacking in millionaires.

[quaker bill]

78. It should be the unearned wealth tax.

Or perhaps the shiftless heir tax. The dead do not miss the money. The living, who get the benefit from simply having the proper genetic line get the money and are the ones who are taxed. If they did something to earn it, then the money should already be in their accounts before the estate is probated.

[bleedingheart]

82. snort!

that is just too funny!

edit: I like your way of describing it a whole lot better..seems far more appropriate.

[democratreformed]

85. Here is my experience with the estate tax:

My dad (61) started a business in 1973. Over the years, it has grown to about $3.5 million per year annual gross sales. He has also accumulated some personal wealth in the form of property (180 acres and his home), stocks and bonds, etc.

About ten years ago (or so), his broker convinced him that he was at risk of his children losing everything to the government if he didn't do some estate planning. He explained it thus: he said the value of the business would be close to its annual sales, so the business would be valued at around $3 million. His personal wealth was around $1 million at the time. Back then, the exemption was the first $600,000. So, if something were to happen to him, his children would have to pay @55% tax on $3.4 milion (we would have to come up with almost $2 million to pay the government in estate taxes). My dad's personal wealth has in no way, shape, or form been shared with his children. We would have no way to come up with that kind of money except to start selling off the assets he left us. Basically, we would have to sell pretty much everything to pay the taxes.

The broker told him he could increase the exemption by setting up a "trust" and "sharing" ownership of everything with my mother. That way, they could each pass stuff on to their children and each would have the $600,000 exemption. So, they transferred ownership of everything, including the business, into a "revocable trust". Also, they started "gifting" 1% of the company each year to each child(there are three of us).

Three years later, my mother died suddenly and unexpectedly. Her half (actually, 45.5% after the "gifting") was to be split equally among the three children. What a mess that caused! My dad was very angry. He actually hated us for a while, I think. He never intended to give over half his business to us BEFORE he died. It is such a mess that I can hardly believe it. Before my mother died, we were a happy close family. Now, we can hardly stand each other. The business is going down the tubes. My dad is disgusted b/c he no longer owns the majority of it and doesn't really want to run it any more. The rest of us are disgusted for various reasons. My sister and I have both removed ourselves from any involvement. My dad and brother stay in a constant power struggle over who has the right to do what and who gets what.

I guess someday the estate tax will come back to cause me trouble again (if there's anything left of the "estate" by then). But, I will deal with that when it happens. In the mean time, if I am successful in MY business, I will definitely share the wealth with my children while I am still alive. I will NOT work all my life to build something that will cause all this trouble AFTER I die. I will make sure my children benefit (if I have enough to share) while I am around to share in the good that it will (hopefully) bring.

[bleedingheart]

86. Families break up over far less

My dad's mother left perhaps a grand total of $10k in assets to split among her five living children. My dad didn't give a fat rat about getting anything but two of his sisters were so vicious about the dividing of the money that in the end my dad only had one sister who was speaking to him.
They had so damaged their relationships that when he died I was suprised to finally meet cousins I had never known.


Same happened with my mother's family. My grandmother left almost nothing but the battles over her crap were so intense that my mother still does not speak to her brothers. My mother was so upset that one of her sisters opened up dialog with them that she cut her off as well....this was all due to the fact that family issues came to a head when my grandmother died and years of favoritism and abuse were made more apparent based on how my grandmother distributed her money...it was her last jab at her kids and it worked...it killed their relationships with each other.

Money has a way of just corrupting everything.

[cheezus]

89. it's an INHERITANCE tax! Work should be taxed but unearned money not?

Typical republican policy. If you EARNED that money, you should be taxed heavily. If you just GOT that money (inheritance, investment), no tax for you.

[Zero Gravitas]

91. Probably

But I'd rather (hopefully in the distant future) literally be a million dollars poorer than have Bush be in office another minute.

[truthspeaker]

92. none of my relatives are NEARLY rich enough for it to apply to me

[JanMichael]

93. Oh. I forgot to add IT'S AN INHERITENCE Tax. You can't tax the DEAD.