Inherited wealth. Any justification?

[AllieBaba]

You are so full of shit.

Inheritance taxes affect EVERYBODY who inherits.

And the majority of people who inherit are NOT the sons of very wealthy men.

And the way it affects individuals is not a straw man at all. It's quite pertinent, obviously, because it illustrates the results of the tax.

 

[AllieBaba]

I worship no man, nor do I hate anyone for having more than me. I am perfectly capable of earning my own way through life. And I do. I ask you for nothing - other than you stay the fuck out of my way - and out of my pocket. What is mine, is mine. Whether I earn it or whether it is given to me by an equally hard working relative. Get your own fucking wealth.

Earn it or starve, I could give a shit which. I help those who need my help. That ain't you.

And don't fuck with my children. I will raise them, and you need to stay the hell away from them.

I will and do help people less fortunate than myself, and I don't need somebody else to do it in my name. I will choose how and when I help, and my help will be in accordance with my own value system and beliefs. Stay away from my value system and beliefs; I have a right to live by them.

Yes, yes. I know. I am quite familiar with the "Keep away from my money and etcetera!" routine because I see it a lot in this forum. But you right-wing folks are evading my question.

You keep sending me to the unemployment place but I can't get any money there because I'm retired and I get a pension. What I want is some of that free government money you guys are always talking about. Where can I get some? I ask you and all I get is, "Fuck you! Stay away from my kids!" and so forth.

That's not very friendly.

I have no idea what question you're talking about, and no idea what question you're referencing..or what unemployment place you're talking about.

 

[chikenwing]

Grandpa's farm and the family heirloom are not the crux of the issue; They're situations that almost never impact anyone in real life. What they are is political strawmen created by the people that actually are impacted by estate taxes.


You don't know many farmers do you??,there is no excuse to take what is not yours ever!

Many a farm has gone down because of just this situation.The incredibly screwed up mindset,that somehow we need to tax the shit out of everyone,particularly people that have more,will somehow solve our problems and bring peace and prosperity to all is well really stupid.

 

[bripat9643]

That's such a silly and pointless argument.

To you it would be a pointless arguement, to a conservative it's a valid point.

It broadcasts an ignorance of what money actually is. It's not a finite tangible object that gets a little "OK" stamp after it's been taxed and never has to be taxed again. It's taxed at the time it changes hands. The tax itself then makes its way back into the private sector.

Back to your post-tax paycheck and the grocer. Do you think the grocer ought not have to pay taxes because your paycheck "was already taxed?"

It's a silly argument. You disagree but offer no reasonable defense.

If that's the case, then you should have no objection to transferring your banks balances over to me. After all, your money is "fungible." It will make its way back to the private economy when I spend it.

 

[bripat9643]

It's already been taxed. It's the same money, just a different person. Fuck off trying to take what doesn't belong to you.

They don't give it to me 'Mo chara.'

And AGAIN - It's the same money when you spend it. The guy who gets your money gets taxed again. That's the way it works. It's changed hands.

Whatever you need to tell yourself to rationalize grave robbery, dude.

All the different rationalizations they have for taking your money are truly amazing, aren't they?

 

[Wiseacre]

What about a small business with assets in the 5-10 million range, which I imagine would be more than a few. Places where the property, equipment, machines, livestock, whatever, are the major component of the estate. So the owner dies but his business has to be sold to pay the taxes?

If I were in such a situation, might I be disincentivized to grow my business beyond the 5 million dollar threshhold? If I were a foreign entrepeneur might I be discouraged to create my enterprise here in the US instead of somewhere else with little or no estate tax?

And for what? Estate taxes in 2009 were about 29 billion in total, you ain't going to solve the debt crisis this way. The really wealthy people have their stuff tied up in foundations and tax exempt shelters somehow, or it's offshore somewhere. Wouldn't we be better off collectively if the estate tax was eliminated? Why incentivize people to cheat or otherwise not put their money to a use that benefits us all here in the US?

Corporations have indefinite life; They don't die along with their founders. Stock in the company are treated as part of your portfolio. If you don't want your heirs to be subject to the tax, then you just don't will any one of them more than the lower limit.

Grandpa's farm and the family heirloom are not the crux of the issue; They're situations that almost never impact anyone in real life. What they are is political strawmen created by the people that actually are impacted by estate taxes.

So are we talking about these specific situations, or are we talking about estate tax in general. Either way is fine with me, but we can't say we're discussing estate taxes the way they really exist in practice (a tax on the heirs of very wealthy men), then tailspin off into hypothetical strawmen that almost never happen in real life.

Never in real life? And you know this how? It ain't just farms and ranches, it's all kinds of small businesses that could not continue to exist if the owner dies and the heirs have to come up with millions that they don't have to pay the estate tax. How convenient for you to just casually dismiss those cases in your unbounded zeal to stick it to the rich.

So I guess you can just as casually shrug off the possibilities of small business owners not expanding their business to exceed the 5 million limit, or the foreign investors/entrepeneurs who open businesses in some other country cuz the US is so God Damn anxious to get their fingers on their wealth that they already paid taxes on.

Straight truth man - you or the gov't does not have a moral right to that wealth and it is wrong to stealthat which is not yours. It is nothing less than authorized theft, by those who should be more focused on improving their own lot in life thorugh their own efforts rather than looking for ways to take what someone else has earned.

Very wealthy men find ways to avoid paying taxes, surely you know this.

 

[Cuyo]

What about a small business with assets in the 5-10 million range, which I imagine would be more than a few. Places where the property, equipment, machines, livestock, whatever, are the major component of the estate. So the owner dies but his business has to be sold to pay the taxes?

If I were in such a situation, might I be disincentivized to grow my business beyond the 5 million dollar threshhold? If I were a foreign entrepeneur might I be discouraged to create my enterprise here in the US instead of somewhere else with little or no estate tax?

And for what? Estate taxes in 2009 were about 29 billion in total, you ain't going to solve the debt crisis this way. The really wealthy people have their stuff tied up in foundations and tax exempt shelters somehow, or it's offshore somewhere. Wouldn't we be better off collectively if the estate tax was eliminated? Why incentivize people to cheat or otherwise not put their money to a use that benefits us all here in the US?

Corporations have indefinite life; They don't die along with their founders. Stock in the company are treated as part of your portfolio. If you don't want your heirs to be subject to the tax, then you just don't will any one of them more than the lower limit.

Grandpa's farm and the family heirloom are not the crux of the issue; They're situations that almost never impact anyone in real life. What they are is political strawmen created by the people that actually are impacted by estate taxes.

So are we talking about these specific situations, or are we talking about estate tax in general. Either way is fine with me, but we can't say we're discussing estate taxes the way they really exist in practice (a tax on the heirs of very wealthy men), then tailspin off into hypothetical strawmen that almost never happen in real life.

Never in real life? And you know this how? It ain't just farms and ranches, it's all kinds of small businesses that could not continue to exist if the owner dies and the heirs have to come up with millions that they don't have to pay the estate tax. How convenient for you to just casually dismiss those cases in your unbounded zeal to stick it to the rich.

I know this because I read. But since we're big on links around here...
http://www.cbpp.org/files/estatetaxmyths.pdf

Myth 3: Many small, family-owned farms and businesses must be liquidated to pay estate
taxes.
Reality: The number of small, family-owned farms and businesses that owe
any estate tax at all is tiny, and virtually no such farms and businesses have to
be liquidated to pay the tax.
The estate of only 0.24 percent of all people who die in 2009 (i.e., the estates of
between two and three of every 1,000 people who die) are expected to owe any estate
tax, according to the Tax Policy Center. And only about 1.3 percent of the few
estates that still are taxable are small business or farm estates.


TPC estimates that only 80 small business and farm estates nationwide will owe any estate tax
in 2009. This figure represents only 0.003 percent of all estates — that is, the estates of three out of every 100,000 people who die this year.

Like I said, it's a strawman; a myth. It just isn't something that really happens.

 

[Cuyo]

You are so full of shit.

Inheritance taxes affect EVERYBODY who inherits.

And the majority of people who inherit are NOT the sons of very wealthy men.

And the way it affects individuals is not a straw man at all. It's quite pertinent, obviously, because it illustrates the results of the tax.

I don't think you have a clue just how few people pay any estate tax at all. But again, that's not the issue.

 

[midcan5]

This for me is another non-issue used by the idiots on the right to have a war party around. Like children who don't share, they think the bogeyman is going to steal the hard earned money of the leisure class. Lots of hoopla about nothing. See a comment from a rich man below. There are two aspects to his comment, one is obvious, but I'll outline the less obvious one. Wealth gets transferred to your children during your lifetime. It comes with class and lifestyle. (We have helped our children already and continue to do so - and we ain't rich just hard working liberals.) The really rich I know, inherited it or inherited a business, so if you wingnuts on the right, want to cry for someone, do it for someone who needs your crocodile tears. The rich don't need your war party of whining - even though they often provide the money to keep you tools preoccupied with dumb thoughts. LOL

"...As Carnegie wrote in his famous 1889 essay, “The Gospel of Wealth,” we didn’t need socialism to solve our problems; philanthropy is “the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor...” Going further, Carnegie argued that the “duty of the man of wealth” was to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community—the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren....

The same way of thinking led Carnegie to support the estate tax—“of all forms of taxation this seems the wisest,” he wrote. It was wise because it would “induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life,” and if he didn’t it would return most of his hoardings to the “community from which it chiefly came.”"

above is from a piece Thomas Frank wrote in Harper's Easy Chair 'Servile Disobedience' February 2011 - still one of the best magazines but this is ($$).

 

[Immanuel]

That's such a silly and pointless argument.

Money is fungible. It's taxed when it changes hands. Isn't your paycheck taxed? When you buy groceries with your already-taxed income, doesn't the grocer then get taxed on his income? Isn't his post-tax income taxed again when he pays the mechanic and the mechanic gets paid?

So if earned income is taxed every time it changes hands, why should un-earned income be any different?

Will you guys ever come up with a position that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker?

It's my money so fuck off.

Not when you're dead. Dead men don't have money. It becomes somebody else's money. That person has to pay tax on it just like any other money he acquires.

I don't have much of a problem with the current system:

Federal Estate Tax Overview & Table

The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Authorization and Job Creation Act of 2010, signed into law on December 17, 2010, provides major changes to the federal estate tax rules & rates. For 2011 and 2012, each person can leave $5,000,000 estate tax free with amounts over $5,000,000 taxed at a federal rate of 35%. A couple could leave up to $10,000,000 estate tax free under this new law. Please be aware that many states impose a separate estate or inheritance tax that can cause the combined state and federal tax rate to approach 50%. This law is only in effect for 2011 and 2012. On January 1, 2013, this law will “sunset” and only $1,000,000 can be passed tax free with any excess taxed at federal rates from 41% to as high as 60%.

As that is not all that unreasonable. However, when the rate was in the high 40% to 55% range, then it became punitive and something that I was and always will be opposed to.

Estate Tax Rate Table - Exemption From Estate Taxes: 1997 - 2013, Estate Tax Exemption

See table in the link.

We should not be punishing people for succeeding.

Immie

 

[mudwhistle]

This for me is another non-issue used by the idiots on the right to have a war party around. Like children who don't share, they think the bogeyman is going to steal the hard earned money of the leisure class. Lots of hoopla about nothing. See a comment from a rich man below. There are two aspects to his comment, one is obvious, but I'll outline the less obvious one. Wealth gets transferred to your children during your lifetime. It comes with class and lifestyle. (We have helped our children already and continue to do so - and we ain't rich just hard working liberals.) The really rich I know, inherited it or inherited a business, so if you wingnuts on the right, want to cry for someone, do it for someone who needs your crocodile tears. The rich don't need your war party of whining - even though they often provide the money to keep you tools preoccupied with dumb thoughts. LOL

"...As Carnegie wrote in his famous 1889 essay, “The Gospel of Wealth,” we didn’t need socialism to solve our problems; philanthropy is “the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor...” Going further, Carnegie argued that the “duty of the man of wealth” was to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community—the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren....

The same way of thinking led Carnegie to support the estate tax—“of all forms of taxation this seems the wisest,” he wrote. It was wise because it would “induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life,” and if he didn’t it would return most of his hoardings to the “community from which it chiefly came.”"

above is from a piece Thomas Frank wrote in Harper's Easy Chair 'Servile Disobedience' February 2011 - still one of the best magazines but this is ($$).

The rich don't need our tears, but if they can do it to the rich they can sure as hell do it to us when they decide it's time.

I'm not gonna justify Communism.

 

[M14 Shooter]

The really rich I know...

And this is where your argument fails.
There are literally millions of "rich" people. Your small sample is absolutely meaningless, and is nothing like sufficient to anchor a premise.
Thus - fail.

As Carnegie wrote in his famous 1889 essay...

... and then, went right thru your ears, metting no resistance as it passed.
The rich have a moral obligation.
Moral obligations must be met thru free will - they cannot be forced by government.
Again - fail.