Liberalism has won(part 2)

[jillian]

I don't believe estate taxes should exist.

The money has already been taxed the first time around when the first person earned it and will make it's way back in the form of property taxes later.

Maybe it's time to ask yourself why the govt. wants their dirty fucking hands on every penny they can get a hold of.

The estate tax is daylight robbery. The money has already been taxed

My paycheck gets taxed, too. But if I pay a babysitter, they pay taxes on the money they're paid.

 

[Gunny]

Piss up a rope, dear.

I said they received a disproportionate BENEFIT from the tax cuts. What did you get back? $200? $400? How much do you think Dick Cheney saved off his last tax bill?

Your original statement did NOT say anything about disproportionate benefit. It was black and white only the top 1% benefit from the tax cuts.

 

[MtnBiker]

Well good for Paul Newman and Bill Gates, it really does looks like a case of class warfare.

 

[Powerman]

My paycheck gets taxed, too. But if I pay a babysitter, they pay taxes on the money they're paid.

Right.

But the difference is you can write off the money on your taxes

If you are an employer you write off your expenses, which includes employee wages on your taxes.

Obviously a dead person can't do this

The govt. is just robbing people

 

[Powerman]

Your original statement did NOT say anything about disproportionate benefit. It was black and white only the top 1% benefit from the tax cuts.

This is true.

Thank you for pointing that out.

You'll have to excuse me for missing that snafu

I was baffled by her absurdly ignorant claims and got sidetracked


ETA: No way in hell your baby sitter is declaring whatever paltry table crumbs you pay her on her taxes

 

[jillian]

Look it's clear that I'm not toeing the republican party line.

It's simple math.

If the top wage earners have a larger percentage of their income taxed than the middle class then they are paying disproportionally larger sums of money.

The fact that you even bothered to show your face on a political forum without knowing this is laughable.

Here is your link

http://www.moneychimp.com/features/tax_brackets.htm

Oh right... I initially said "significant" benefit, didn't I... somewhere in my second post on the subject. Like I said, you wanna save a couple of hundred dollars so some rich dude can save a fortune, more power to ya.

Talk about ignorant...let's talk about how smart it is to vote against one's own self-interest. Unless you are among the top 1% of wage-earners or expect to inherit more than 1.5 million dollars, your support for these cuts is kind of self-defeating, no? Particularly in light of the history of estate taxes.

 

[Annie]

Oh right... I initially said "significant" benefit, didn't I... somewhere in my second post on the subject. Like I said, you wanna save a couple of hundred dollars so some rich dude can save a fortune, more power to ya.

Talk about ignorant...let's talk about how smart it is to vote against one's own self-interest. Unless you are among the top 1% of wage-earners or expect to inherit more than 1.5 million dollars, your support for these cuts is kind of self-defeating, no? Particularly in light of the history of estate taxes.

I don't really spend my life fighting jealousy. I prefer to enjoy it. Then again, I've no need to keep up a tirerade of 'feeling all the poor people's pain', I pick my charities and volunteer activities and do them. Gives me more than I give, of that I'm sure.

You should try enjoying life once in a while, Jillian. It's not all doom and gloom.

 

[Gunny]

Oh right... I initially said "significant" benefit, didn't I... somewhere in my second post on the subject. Like I said, you wanna save a couple of hundred dollars so some rich dude can save a fortune, more power to ya.

Talk about ignorant...let's talk about how smart it is to vote against one's own self-interest. Unless you are among the top 1% of wage-earners or expect to inherit more than 1.5 million dollars, your support for these cuts is kind of self-defeating, no? Particularly in light of the history of estate taxes.

BS. It's all relevant. We get a couple of hundred back because we pay in $10K. You're complaining because someone who pays in $100K in taxes gets a couple thousand back?

Your socialist roots are showing.

And no, it isn't self-defeating beacuse unfairly taxing those who go out and earn more to give those who earn less is about as bogus as it gets.

 

[MtnBiker]

And if you look at what I posted, a very small percent of people are even affected by the tax.

How does that make it right? Is it because more voters can be influenced to support legislation that distrubutes wealth?

 

[Dr Grump]

Death taxes are daylight robbery period...

 

[jillian]

Death taxes are daylight robbery period...

Oh pooh! :funnyface

Repeal of estate tax morally bankrupt

By SEAN GONSALVES
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

Last week, I was invited to a reception in Boston where I met Bill Gates Sr., father of the richest man in the world and one of the founding members of an organization called Responsible Wealth (www.responsiblewealth.org). This group of millionaires and billionaires believes in the biblical adage that says, to whom much is given, much is required.

Responsible Wealth made headlines on Valentine's Day 2001 when The New York Times published a front-page article about its campaign to oppose the Bush administration push for wholesale repeal of the estate tax, which President Bush initiated by signing into law the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001.

Among other things, the act reduces the feds' claim on estate taxes until 2010 when the law calls for the long-time levy to be completely repealed.

Gates was in town to promote a new book, "Wealth and Our Commonwealth," which he co-wrote with Chuck Collins, the program director of the Boston-based think tank United for a Fair Economy.

The book, a must read, makes the case for why estate tax repeal is an economically and morally bankrupt proposal, and puts forward some alternative policy recommendations.

As it stands, the estate tax only affects the richest 2 percent of America's fortune makers. So why should the rest of us be concerned? And why did Gates and Collins write an entire book devoted to the analysis of a single provision of the tax code?

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker provides an eloquent explanation in the forward. "From the days of our founding fathers . . . the concept of equality of opportunity and dispersion of wealth and economic power has been part of the American psyche.

"The inheritance of huge fortunes, far beyond any reasonable need for education, for medical care and for a comfortable -- even luxurious -- standard of living has never rested easily with that political philosophy."

After the schmooze session at the Community Church on Boylston Street, we walked over to the Boston Public Library where Gates and Collins presented the core ideas of their book to an audience of several hundred. Disinformation was dispelled.

For example, repeal rebels claim the estate tax hurts "family farmers." But Collins pointed out that when inquiring reporters searched for these alleged victims, not one could be found. In fact, the pro-repeal American Farm Bureau Federation -- the largest farm organization in the country -- couldn't point to a single case of a family farm lost due to the estate tax.

The canard that the estate tax is "double taxation" was also thoroughly debunked by Gates who, when asked about it, said: "Well, I've been paying taxes on my house in Seattle every year for the past 43 years."

He went on to insist that society has a moral claim to a portion of the super-rich's money. The wealthy, he said, have an "implicit obligation" to pay a higher share of taxes, acknowledging that "there's no such thing as a self-made millionaire."

Gates said that it's one thing to argue about what the size of the federal government should be, but the fact remains: "The government is the biggest venture capitalist there is," reminding us that Uncle Sam foots the bill for the essential research upon which the wealthy build their fortunes. For instance, "there would be no Internet without federal government research money."

Revenue from the estate tax today generates about $30 billion, or about 1 percent of federal revenue. But that amount will skyrocket in the coming years because of an unprecedented intergenerational transfer of wealth.

"The estimated size of the intergenerational transfer of wealth between 1998 and 2052 ranges from a low estimate of $40.6 trillion, based on a modest 2 percent growth rate, to a high estimate of $136.2 trillion, based on a 4 percent growth rate . . .

"A meaningful estate tax imposed on these wonderfully successful people's wealth . . . could generate, at an effective tax rate of 30 percent and an exemption of $3 million, $278 billion over the years between now and the demise of the last survivor!"

The rationale for estate tax repeal is that if you give billionaires even more tax breaks, they will invest and create jobs. I thought about that on my way home. Stopped at a long red light in Boston traffic, I picked up the book and thumbed to page 14.

"One cartoonist illustrated . . . a politician speaking at a banquet, bragging that his 'administration had created millions of new jobs.' The waiter at the banquet observes, 'Yes I know, I have three of them.' "

My laughter was cut short by a beeping motorist who seemed bothered that I didn't speed off at the split second the light turned green.

Maybe he was in a rush to get to one of several jobs he's forced to work in order for his ends to meet -- no doubt, thanks to tax cuts that really only add to what Gates calls "impervious piles of wealth."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/105050_sean21.shtml

 

[jillian]

By Christopher Farrell

Against the American Aristocracy
The U.S. has made strides in narrowing the gap between rich and poor. Eliminating the estate tax would be a big backward step

Equality has long been a central value in American society. The 19th century social philosopher Alexis de Toqueville emphasized equality of conditions. Capitalist theorist Milton Friedman wrote eloquently about equality of opportunity. Political commentator Mickey Kaus emphasized equality of civic space.

Yet, America has long been a society with an unequal distribution of income and wealth. An academic cottage industry has grown up studying the rise in income inequality over the past few decades. Although the figures can be cut in different ways, researchers broadly agree that the gap between the rich and poor has grown since the 1970s. The concentration of wealth has been remarkably stable in recent decades, however, despite the go-go years of the dot-com boom and the legions of newly minted zillionaires.

That could change if the Bush Administration gets its way and permanently eliminates the estate tax. Call it the revenge of the rentier class.

NOT AS BAD. The existing estate tax is deeply flawed, crying out for reform. But instead of eliminating the tax, it would be far easier to reduce the amount that is exempt so that only the most rarified have to take the tax into consideration. It's bad public policy to actively encourage the creation of an aristocracy of privilege and inherited wealth, especially in a high-tech, integrated global economy that values meritocracy, entrepreneurship, and human capital.

Although inequality still exists in the American system, it's not as bad as it used to be. The top 1%, although a small fraction of the population, used to hold almost 40% of the nation's household wealth. That's according to a recent study "Top Wealth Shares in the United States, 1916-2000: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns," by Wojciech Kopczuk of Columbia University and Emmanuel Saez of the University of California.

The early part of the study focuses on the opulent era when the wealthy heirs of Vanderbilt, Astor, Peabody, Duke, and others summered in mansions in Newport and socialites put on ostentatious balls in New York. The rentier class portrayed by Edith Warton in The House of Mirth scorned the newly rich. Horrors, they made money in business.

MORE STOCK PLAYERS. Wealth is far less concentrated today. Kopczuk and Saez say the figure for the amount of the nation's wealth held by the richest 1% has been fluctuating between 20% and 25% over the last three decades. Here's an alternative measure to capture the same dynamic. America's richest man in 1918 was John D. Rockefeller who owned 0.54% of the nation's total net worth. In sharp comparison, at the peak of the stock market boom in 2000 it took the combined fortunes of Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Paul Allen, and one-third of Warren Buffett to equal 0.52% of net worth, according to the scholars.

What happened? The big transformation in the concentration of wealth in America came from the economic shocks of 1929 to 1945: The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War II. The rentier class has never managed to reconstitute its preeminent economic position over the last half century. The authors argue the two most important factors behind that failure were the progressive income tax and estate taxes.

The authors also highlight the democratization of stock market ownership in recent years. The top 1% of individuals no longer holds a significantly larger fraction of their wealth in stocks compared to the average person in the U.S. economy with a 401(k) plan and a college savings account.

Of course, the progressive income tax system is under assault as tax law increasingly favors capital at the expense of labor. The elimination of the estate tax would only worsen the situation. Henry Simon, the University of Chicago economist and proponent of a progressive income tax system, memorably remarked that extreme inequality is "unlovely." Equality of opportunity is too important a concept to sacrifice to the whims of the rentier

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may2004/nf20040521_5601_db013.htm

 

[rtwngAvngr]

You're such a commie, jillian.

 

[musicman]

Well, in the first place, let's disabuse ourselves of Volcker's disingenuous assertion that:

..."From the days of our founding fathers . . . the concept of equality of opportunity and dispersion of wealth and economic power has been part of the American psyche."

Equality of dispersion does not necessarily follow equality of opportunity; this is a fundamental truth of human nature. Ignoring that truth is the fundamental flaw of socialism - which brings me to my next point:

Wealth is not a zero/sum game; i.e., the reason I lack money is not because Bill Gates HAS it. His wealth does not constitute theft from me. This is what makes the politics of envy such a hateful game. It's practitioners actually gain nothing - apart from the spiteful satisfaction of seeing the successful suffer. I guess that's enough for some people. Sad.

 

[theHawk]

What exactly does "narrowing the gap between the rich and poor" mean? To me it means taxing the rich down to everyone else's level. We will never be able to eleminate the poor because there will always be immigrants who come here with nothing, lazy people that dont want to work, and stupid people that waste all their money.....so lets not have any illusions that we will ever eleminate the poor. We should never try to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, we should be encouraging people to extent that gap and strive to be furthest away from poor as they can be. You don't do that by saying 'hey if you work your ass off and make another 100k a year, you''ll only get to keep 30k of it!'

 

[MtnBiker]

There is a cure for being poor, that is gaining wealth. However that does not mean redistributing wealth it means creating wealth. We have the wealthiest nation on earth, not by taxing the rest of the nations but by creating our own wealth.

 

[Dr Grump]

Jillian

Let's take an extreme example. Let's say I complete a contract and get paid $100,000. The govt take say 30%. Say on the day I pay the IRD I die. Suddenly the govt gets another slice of the remaining $70,000. Why should they? That money has just been taxed. If the govt feels that money should be taxed, then at the VERY least I reckon those getting taxed in this manner should get the choice of what happens to the money. Give it to a charity of their choice. I wouldn't trust the govt to do the rigth thing with the money. But in all honesty, the govt should not even get a sniff...

 

[jillian]

Jillian

Let's take an extreme example. Let's say I complete a contract and get paid $100,000. The govt take say 30%. Say on the day I pay the IRD I die. Suddenly the govt gets another slice of the remaining $70,000. Why should they? That money has just been taxed. If the govt feels that money should be taxed, then at the VERY least I reckon those getting taxed in this manner should get the choice of what happens to the money. Give it to a charity of their choice. I wouldn't trust the govt to do the rigth thing with the money. But in all honesty, the govt should not even get a sniff...

Actually, the government wouldn't get a slice of the $70,000 since most estates are not subject to taxation. It's only estates of over 1.5 million dollars (at least that's what I think it is now...could be wrong) that are subject to tax.

Try another example.... I earn X dollars a week and pay 40% tax on it. I have a full time sitter who gets $300 a week. She's supposed to pay taxes on that $300 a week. The argument that it's double taxed is a fallacious one. Things are double taxed all the time (e.g., If I sell goods, I pay sales tax on them when I buy them for my store...then when you come into my shop, you pay sales tax again).

 

[Dr Grump]

Try another example.... I earn X dollars a week and pay 40% tax on it. I have a full time sitter who gets $300 a week. She's supposed to pay taxes on that $300 a week. The argument that it's double taxed is a fallacious one. Things are double taxed all the time (e.g., If I sell goods, I pay sales tax on them when I buy them for my store...then when you come into my shop, you pay sales tax again).

Sounds like there is far too much taxing giong on...

 

[jillian]

Sounds like there is far too much taxing giong on...

May well be, but that's a whole other issue.