Posted on 04/15/2015 8:24:27 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
With the federal budget debate underway in Washington, both political parties are certainly sparring over different fiscal visions for the country. There is, however, a chance for rare bi-partisan agreement: repealing the federal death tax.
This unpopular tax has long had an adverse impact on small, family business owners who want the next generation to continue the family legacy. Currently, the federal government seizes over 40 percent of an individual’s estate when they die. While the President wants to destroy so many of those legacies and raise taxes, Congress has the chance to go in a different direction.
Federal lawmakers should look to the states for guidance. While twenty-one of them carry an additional death tax on their books, many states have reformed and in some cases eliminated the death tax in recent years. States such as Oklahoma, Ohio, and North Carolina simply abolished their death taxes. Other states like New York have raised their exemption to match current federal law, although the New York exemption is a phase-in and will match the federal level by 2019.
Supporters often claim that the death tax is vital for revenue, but in reality it is a poor way for a state to raise revenue and has led people to leave a given state. According to a study by the Ocean State Research Institute, the death tax was the primary factor in residents leaving Rhode Island. The study found 107,086 or (one in ten) residents left the state between 1991 and 2009. While the state collected $341.3 million in estate tax receipts, it lost over $500 million in other taxes due to people migrating to other states.
The benefits of axing the death tax are clear. Various studies conclude that eliminating the death tax would spur economic growth and create jobs.
I never understood how the Gubmint could logically tax monies that have already been taxed multiple times. Makes no sense to me....but to a politician...SOP.
Leaving behind money for your children after you die these days means giving them a map to all the buriede mayo jars full of money in your back 40.
It has nothing to do with logic. The elimination of inherited wealth is a plank of the Communist Manifesto.
Death tax another gift from the democrat party the list is endless helping the little guy ya know.
Some years back, my great uncle died. He’d been the owner of a small chain of 4 furniture stores. His surviving wife, my aunt, was forced to close all 4 stores, lay off about 130 people and sell the stores and inventory to pay the taxes. She had more than enough left for her to live comfortably for the rest of her life, but paying the taxes forced 130 people onto the unemployment lines and they had nothing left of the business to leave to their children.
I have seen this happen also.
It has hit the American farmers even harder.
The “gubmint” is the high priesthood of Humanism which stands in opposition to Judeo-Christian values, passed down from God.
God says a righteous man leaves an inheritance to two following generations.
The gov’t wants to make sure that doesn’t happen.
But KEEP the step-up basis!!
Interesting that the GOP is jumping through hoops to eliminate an inheritance tax supposedly for farmers, that we all know have been getting their due on government subsidies and handouts for many years. Yet they do nothing for average Americans whose typical inheritance might be an IRA or 401K that will be taxed at earned income tax rates.
I know ...the discussion of what was taxed and what wasn’t can always be muddied by those who wish to benefit their own position. The fact is that people got rich in America that would not have gotten rich in Yemen, and that means that someone besides the USA middle class needs an obligation to pay back to the nation for defense, infrastructure etc..
Where will the revenue that is lost come from? Another Chinese credit card.
I view Congress as being made up of mostly incompetent traitors that are either interested in taking away our rights or giving away our economy to China, or importing illiterate poverty for cheap labor and votes and turning urban areas into cesspools, or keeping us involved in perpetual costly wars that have little to do with us, while our infrastructure goes to hxll. It is obvious to me that every time they get the opportunity they will stick it to and reduce the middle class.
The government incompetence in protecting us from illegal entry, and our borders led us to 9-11 and to our “changing face”.
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