Does This Girl Need a Tax Break?

[Eric J in MN]

From http://moveleft.com


Paris Hilton, model and hotel heiress

Huge budget deficit.

Huge national debt.

What is the irresponsible thing to do?

Give tax breaks to people who inherit fortunes.

So that is what House Republican leaders are planning.

They scheduled a vote for this week to eliminate the Estate Tax.

I wish heiress Paris Hilton good luck with her shopping, modeling, and reality tv show-starring, but our government should require her to pay her share when she inherits her fortune.

The Estate Tax is the fairest tax we have.

Writer E. J. Dionne, Jr. discusses this issue in yesterday's Washington Post, in a column titled, "The Paris Hilton Tax Cut."

[coloradodem2005]

1. Fuck no.

God, she makes me sick.

[Clark Bayh 2008]

3. Well, I don't support her tax cut... but let's keep our eye on the ball

The real issue is the filibuster being available for use when Rehnquist retires.

BTW, if any of us was raised in the same way as PH, I doubt we'd behave all that much differently. So Paris, you go girl!

[Eric J in MN]

4. I encourage people to also contact their Republican Senators

for the filibuster.

Find your Senators contact info at:
www.vote-smart.org

[atreides1]

5. I Disagree

My goodness you paint with a broard brush, don't you?

Not all people that are rich turn out like Paris Hilton, and the reason that we very seldom hear about them, is because it doesn't translate well to reality TV.

[Snivi Yllom]

2. she could use

a large meteorite landing on her, vaporizing her vapid personality from the face of the Earth.

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. Good solution for all the Greed Pigs in this Country!

I guess they think they exist in a vacuum where their wealth wasn't created with the help of the society in which they live. Ah well I guess it's true that taxes are only for the little people. :banghead:

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Patiod]

9. Death tax?

Good call on the off-shoring the money though. Molly Ivins rips into that in her most recent column

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/21735/

[Yavin4]

10. BULL!!!

Stop the neocons-Frank-Lutz-speak. It's not a "death tax". The estate tax does not affect Ma and Pa Kettle farms. Okay, enough. It affects people exactly like Paris Hilton. Why should someone who has never had to work received tax-free income while people who work two or three jobs have to pay income taxes on it every damn day of their lives.

[Zynx]

11. The hyper-rich will not pay the estate tax.

See my post below about the trust funds Hilton certainly has.

[starwolf]

14. BULL(y) to you too

Elsewhere in this thread others point out as well as myself that the hyper rich dodge all the taxes.

The death tax as currently structured kills asset rich/cash poor family holdings. To pay it the families liquidate the assets. Family agriculture, small to medium sized businesses are very hard hit. We went through this and its very ugly. Our old family farm is now a housing development thanks to the death tax.

I have no problems hitting Paris Hilton and her ilk hard, but that is not what is happening. Its the law of unintended consequences. Since they are not paying anyway, kill it for the rest of us.

[yankeedem]

17. Please find me ONE farmer who has lost the family farm

to estate taxes. The * campaign looked, and found none, even in Iowa.

And if its a choice between an asset rich/cash poor family and asset poor/cash poor families bearing the brunt of the tax burden, tell Ma and Pa Farmer to tell their kids to pack up their shit when they die.

Especially since Ma and Pa Farmer have likely taken millions in government welfare in farm supports and subsidies over the years.

[starwolf]

18. My brother and I

Major rearrangement of our lives. In all fairness, it was before the prior changes. Destoyed a lot of dreams.

[Doctor_J]

19. The GOP could use you in the campaign

It was pointed out the last time the Paris Hilton Tax was up for repeal that NOT ONE FAMILY FARM HAS EVER BEEN LOST TO THIS TAX. THe GOP never refuted that fact. You might want to e-mail Luntz and tell hime you want to join the GOP campaign.

[bvar22]

21. Most family farms lost due to bickering...

...about how to split up the loot!

For the Family Farm to survive, it must remain intact. This is becoming increasingly difficult as offspring move off the farm and want their cut in cash instead of returning to rural areas to work the Farm, especially since competition from AgriCorps has made this extremely difficult. Most farms are converted to cash by selling out to housing developers or agribusiness to make them easier to cash out among the heirs.

You say a housing development now stands on your old family farm?

[bvar22]

20. MORE Republican LIES. No farms lost to "Death Tax".

Help spread the TRUTH, not republican lies!
The "Losing the Family Farm" meme is a very sucessful republican propaganda campaign.

"Yet tax return data show that very few farmers pay estate taxes. Only 6,216 taxable estates in 1999 included any agricultural land and equipment, the I.R.S. report shows. The average value of these farm assets was $440,000, only about a third of the amount that any married couple could leave untaxed to heirs. What is more, a farm couple can pass $4.1 million untaxed, so long as the heirs continue farming for 10 years.

In Iowa, the average farm has a net worth of $1.2 million. Loyd A. Brown, president of Hertz Farm Management in Nevada, Iowa, which runs more than 400 farms in 10 states, said none of his firm's clients nor anyone he knew was facing problems because of the estate tax."

<snip>

" Even one of the leading advocates for repeal of estate taxes, the American Farm Bureau Federation, said it could not cite a single example of a farm lost because of estate taxes."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0408-02.htm

"That the White House and the Farm Bureau could not find any examples to substantiate their claims is not surprising because few farmers in America have the kind of wealth that would even make them subject to the estate tax. The IRS statistics on estate taxes returns show why. Only 2% of the 2.4 million Americans who died in 2000 left an estate that owed any taxes. Of the 52,000 estates that paid taxes, only 2,765 had any farm assets and their average value was $149,000, far below the threshold for estate taxes."

http://www.entrepreneurbooks.com/Perfectly-Legal-Review.html

[Zynx]

7. Trust me, Paris Hilton will pay *NO* estate tax as it is anyway

If the Hilton family doesn't have one of the most bizarre networks of trust funds you've ever seen, I'll eat my hat.

[SemperEadem]

8. the government should force her to pick up a rifle

and go fight in Iraq. That would be an even better reality series. She is worthless and a waste of good human space. Nothing more than vulgar tripe.

[bumblebee1]

12. There's an idea

Imagine the Army patrol with both the Bush twins and Paris Hilton? Then again, I'd rather not. Most of the people in that patrol would probably be killed.

[Zynx]

15. Three way mud wrestling?

:evilgrin:

[GOPBasher]

13. Yeah, that's totally worth exploding our national debt even more!

It's wonderful! Let's just make the nation go broke because of tax cuts for billionaires.

[Eric J in MN]

22. The bill to repeal the Estate Tax passed the House

today by 272-162. George W. Bush called the repeal is "a matter of basic fairness."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=667563

Bush is a liar. The Estate Tax is the fairest tax we have.

[NervousRex]

23. Hell No!

If she want's more money she should package and sell the footage of her getting porked by some frat boy which was, and is floating around the 'net...call it Paris in Springtime...either way, to anyone who has seen it, it can be agreed, that..."she ain't all that"