Right!!!!
Over the years I have had to explain to high-income workers ( doctors, lawyers, etc. ) that WORKING to earn $ 200K is qualitatively different from having enough RETURN ON CAPITAL to earn $ 200K.
You show me a family that has that kind of assets and any decent accountant can deploy those assets so as to minimize taxes. However, if you work and earn the money, you better get ready to pay the tax man.
That's one reason why jfk's proposal to tax people earning over $ 200K is so asinine - it won't apply to him or that nut he's married to.
Excellent reply, especially the last sentence. Kerry is pandering to the lower income voters who maybe clear 25k a year. They think earning 200k+ makes you rich. Of course we know it's asinine, but poor people might not.
For example, I know a couple of wealthy people. They are doctors, and they own a farm. They live in the farmhouse and theoreticly are farmers, but in a very limited way (they had a calf for a while, and they grow hay on one of the fields). But they get all the tax writeoffs associated with being farmers and business owners, while living nicely in their "place of business".
One business owner I know has gotten around estate taxes by buying some unimproved land in his grandkids name, then building his company's offices on the land (leased to the company on a 99-year lease). At whatever point he sells the business, the most likely part of the deal is the new owners buy the land the business sits on as part of the deal, with most of the value of the business passing to the grandkids via the real estate. Other examples abound.