Posted on 07/28/2005 5:40:10 AM PDT by OESY
...A recent study by... found that over 20 years the Joint Committee on Taxation] has always underestimated the revenues from tax hikes, while overestimating the revenues that are lost when taxes are cut....
The Joint Tax calculations of the "cost" of death tax repeal have been particularly wild and inexplicable. In 2001, JCT famously estimated that repeal would cost the Treasury $600 billion over 10 years -- twice as much as the death tax actually raises. The Joint Tax whiz kids built into their computer models the behavioral effects of lawyers working the interplay between the death and gift tax rates, and somehow came up with far more lost revenue. At the same time, however, they ignored the behavioral impact of eliminating the tax on saving and economic incentives.
This year the JCT is peddling another indefensible death-tax cost estimate: $300 billion in lost tax collections. This guess also turns a blind eye to any dynamic impact of faster economic growth, more savings, more job creation, and more capital investment that can be anticipated once the tax is gone.
No one can say for certain how much revenue will be recaptured from higher growth, but one thing we do know is that the number is surely not zero--eliminating the death tax would provide enough of a boost to the economy that the overall revenues of the federal government would be slightly higher without the tax....
In addition to being bad math and bad economics, all of this works to distort tax policy. In the case of the death tax, the large lost-revenue estimates provide an excuse for Democratic fence-sitters to vote no....
Death should not be a taxable event, as most other serious countries seem to understand....
[I]f the death tax survives this Congress, Republicans have only themselves to blame.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Death to the death tax bump.
Sounds like income tax and payroll tax too!
When you think about it, the estate tax is the confluence of life's two certainties.
Every time I hear a report or read an article on the estate tax, I wonder how many family farms and businesses have been destroyed by it. The liberals like to think it only hurts the rich but it also steals from those that die cash poor but property rich when the survivors need to sell the business to cover the tax bill.
Or spend tons of $ estate planning - if you can.
If the government eliminates the death tax, how can it afford all it does for us after we're dead?
Nations without an estate taxDo the people of most of those nations even have estates to tax?
Why would we want to be like any of them? Why not show the states that have no estate tax instead?
I'm not in favor of estate taxes but at least show some countries who have no estate tax that are better off than us...Otherwise what's the point?
omitted on previous post - apologies
http://www.ncpa.org/pi/taxes/pd062899a.html
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John Linder in the House(HR25) & Saxby Chambliss Senate(S25) offer a comprehensive bill to kill all income and SS/Medicare payroll taxes outright and replace them with with a national retail sales tax administered by the states.
H.R.25,S.25
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.Refer for additional information:
The flat tax will take 17% of your taxable income plus 7.65% of wages up to 90k(?).That's 24.65% for most folks - without the necessary increase.
The Fair Tax nrst takes 23% of what you spend - taking the prebate on necessity spending into account, most folks will pay closer to 12% of spending.
Important to note that any amounts saved or invested have no tax paid on them.
INCOME TAX CODE: 60,000 PAGES and growing.
The key phrase there is "better off than us".
Neal Boortz's Fair Tax book is currently #1 on Amazon's non-fiction bestseller list and #2 overall (behind Harry Potter). It hasn't even come out yet. Steve Forbes' "Flat Tax Revolution" is currently #49 on the nonfiction list. It came out in July.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/new-for-you/top-sellers/-/books/53/ref=pd_ts_b_nav/102-2016428-7344963?ts-parent-id=1000
"According to the Federal Reserve, household wealth in the U.S. has doubled in the last 10 years from $21.5 trillion in 1988 to $43.2 trillion in 1998. Since the population has only risen about 10 percent, wealth per capita has increased enormously."So what's your point? Can you post something that can say the same for one of those countries without a death rax?
If you think one of those high tax countries are better just because it doesn't happen to have a death tax...move there.
Like I said before. What's the point of touting that a country doesn't have an estate tax when the citizens probably don't have estates to tax?
The flat tax will take 17% of your taxable income plus 7.65% of wages up to 90k(?).That's 24.65% for most folks - without the necessary increase.Define "taxable income" before making comparisons to taxing 100% of your spending.
One thing you haven't addressed is if the "Death" tax is repealed, so will the step-up in basis that heirs receive on inherited property. For example, if you and your sister inherit your parent's residence in which they have a $100,000 basis, and it is worth $500,000 you and your sister will have a $400,000 capital gain to share.
Under current law, there would be no capital gain to the heirs if the property were sold for the FMV at the date of death.
Uncle Sam giveth, and Uncle Sam taketh away.
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