Posted on 02/08/2006 5:07:55 PM PST by voletti
The President aims to end estate taxes for the wealthiest Americans. He also wants to scrap a $255 death benefit for the poorest The contrast in President Bush's new budget could not be more stark. On one hand, he wants to eliminate what he likes to call the "death tax" -- a levy imposed on a handful of the nation's biggest estates. On the other, he wants to end Social Security's lump sum death benefit -- a $255 check that the families of many of the nation's poorest use to help pay for their funerals.
There is a lot more in Bush's $2.77 trillion budget than that, of course. He'd boost spending for homeland security and the Pentagon, trim many popular domestic programs, and control the growth of Medicare by boosting premiums for high-income seniors and freezing or cutting payments for health providers, such as doctors, hospitals, and hospices. At the same time, the President asked Congress to make most of his first-term tax cuts permanent.
ESTATE PLANNING. That includes permanently eliminating the estate tax, or what conservatives like to call the death tax. Like most of what happens these days in the tax world, the story is complicated, but it goes like this: Starting in 2001, Congress began to gradually increase the size of an estate that would be exempt from tax. By 2009, estates of $3.5 million or less ($7 million for a couple that does the smallest bit of planning), would be tax-free. By 2010 all estates would be exempt from the tax, but only for one year.
So President Bush wants to permanently free all estates from the tax starting in 2011. The estimated annual cost: in excess of $50 billion in 2012, rising to more than $70 billion by 2016.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
AMEN!
The FairTax - as stated by several posters - eliminates the income tax, payroll taxes, the estate tax, and gift taxes in addition to the IRS and the income tax records.
What's not to like with that?
The idea that the $255 death benefit that the SSA pays is somehow material to anything that now exists in the USA. It isn't, it isn't. It is nothing, do you hear me? It is one months worth of wine for a homeless person (better known as a bum).
Yet here we have this ultra nut trying to justify his/her/neuter position on these riduculous items. One might just as well have posted a map of Mars as to have put this tripe on the board.
I have an idea, let's re-instate the Secretariat in the Soviet Union and all live under it. Okay? Huh?
My guess is that it costs more than $255 to decide who gets the $255. That only goes to spouses and some dependents. And how much does that matter toward burial these days?
I understood what you said. I was talking about the 255 death benefit, but the point also applies to lots of other things. We could cut social programs drastically ( and also taxes) if we just paid benefits to those who really need them.
and the other 11,000 taxes and fees levied by the feds?
and the equal nember of state taxes?
Get Real...
I am real - you're not. You need to put in some time on the FairTax website to see that states will most probably choose to conform their sales taxes to the FairTax and why and how this will cause the state rates to decline considerably,
As I said the FairTax eliminates income taxes, payroll taxes, estate taxes, and gift taxes as well as doing away with the IRS and the income tax records. This all represents the most onerous tax burdens as well as the ones causing the most aggravation for most taxpayers.
With the FairTax there is NO interaction of a taxpayer with the taxing authority (which is the state sales tax authority).
I take it you've not read HR25 either. It makes good reading if you have an open mind and hope to learn about the FairTax.
The estate tax should be called "The Lawyers Full Employment Act." It's a travesty and we must end it. I wonder what it costs the US economy in terms of productivity forgone, in terms of money spent on "planning", etc. I'd like to see what each dollar collected actually costs the US Economy.......
Not all of the poorest are insurable. I know of one individual who is dirt poor and has Hepatitis C.....near death's door......uninsurable for sure. His wife has no idea how she will bury him.
"The Fair Tax" aka The willful ignorance of world history act.
What exactly is your objection?
3.1 million "people" in government addicted to free and unlimited amounts of crack.
Maybe you also believe that 1 billion Chinese will wake up tomorrow with blond hair and blue eyes.
HR 25, The "Fair Tax" eliminates the entire income tax code
Learn to read, dufus.
Not-So-Fun Facts About a National Sales Tax
The Urban Institute has released a major study analyzing the math behind the leading proposal to replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax, H.R. 25 (a/k/a the Fair Tax Act of 2005). Link to the study here (PDF – 23 pages); link to the legislation here.
The sponsors of the House bill have suggested that, as structured, their tax paradigm would be revenue-neutral to the federal government at a 23% sales tax rate.
To which the Urban Institute's response is: Bullsh*t!
According to UI, even under the most optimistic assumptions, the correct number would be closer to 44%. Or, stated differently, a 23% national sales tax would fall $7 trillion short over the next decade under H.R. 25.
But those optimistic assumptions are also hopelessly unrealistic. UI demonstrates, via comprehensive models, the various fallacies and errors (and one might dare say flat-out lies) behind the 23% number. Some highlights:
--The 23% number is "tax inclusive," which is how people think of income taxes but not sales taxes. The actual sales tax as normal people measure it is really 30%:
Suppose a good costs $100, before taxes, and there is an additional $30 sales tax placed on top of that price. The tax-exclusive sales tax rate is the ratio of the tax to the pretax price (that is, the tax payment is excluded from the denominator). In this example, it would be 30 percent (30/100). The tax-exclusive rate corresponds to the "mark-up at the cash register." In contrast, the tax inclusive tax rate is the ratio of the tax payment to the entire cost of the good, including both the pretax price and the tax payment itself; in this example, it would be about 23 percent (30/130).
So right off the bat, before any scrutiny of any of the underlying assumptions, we're really talking about a 30% sales tax, not 23%. But it gets worse.
--The 23% number assumes absolutely zero tax avoidance (legal) or tax evasion (illegal). That's nonsense and we all know it. In fact, evasion may be far easier under a sales tax than under the income tax (e.g., you could easily have an ongoing agreement with your barber, nanny, mechanic, or whomever to keep the haircuts, daycare, tune-ups or whatever "off the books"). UI notes that the current federal income tax evasion rate is estimated at 17% of aggregate taxable income; if the evasion rate were comparable for a national sales tax, then the revenue-neutral tax rate would escalate dramatically (more on that below).
--Under H.R. 25, state & local government purchases would be subject to the national sales tax. Of course, the (narrow) holding of McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819), concerned the other direction (i.e., states cannot try to tax the federal government), but UI also suggests that any attempt by the federal government to impose a sales tax on state governments might be constitutionally suspect. Not my area of expertise. (And anyway, let's assume it is constitutional to tax the states and their subdivisions. Where will the states, counties, cities and school districts get the money to pay this new federal sales tax? From you and me, of course. Damned if you and damned if you don't.) UI estimates that if state and local government purchases were exempt from the national sales tax, the revenue-neutral tax-exclusive rate would, ceteris paribus, rise from 30% to 36%.
--H.R. 25 taxes financial services. For example, the national sales tax would apply to your mortgage interest payment, or at least that part in excess of the going rate on Treasuries:
Thus, for example, a taxpayer with a mortgage at a 7 percent rate would have 4/7 of the mortgage interest payment subject to tax if the Treasury rate were 3 percent even though the home purchase itself was already subject to tax. While we're on the subject: Under H.R. 25, if you buy a newly-constructed home, then you pay sales tax on it, but if you buy an existing home, then you don't pay the tax. Try to explain how that's fair or how it won't have a huge impact on the economically vital housing market.
--Under H.R. 25, each household (defined how?) would receive a rebate, called a "demogrant," designed to exempt purchases equivalent to the poverty level. Two observations: First, still think there wouldn't be an Internal Revenue Service to manage (and audit) these "demogrants"? Second, think the liberals, socialists and Rawlsians wouldn't eventually call for means testing the demogrant such that the "rich" (defined how?) won't get it?
All-in, UI estimates that, under various scenarios about evasion, exemptions (e.g., for food purchases) and excluding state and local government purchases, the revenue-neutral sales tax rate under H.R 25 could actually be anywhere from 53% to 82%. Either that, or keep the national sales tax lower and explode the deficit.
And finally, I'll repeat my own warning: Any proposal to move from a federal income tax to a national sales tax must, absolutely must, include a constitutional amendment repealing the Sixteenth Amendment. Otherwise, we will simply go from an income tax today to a sales tax tomorrow to both the day after tomorrow.
Libertarians would be better off simply advocating lower taxes (and spending) rather than persisting in this deck-chair-rearranging debate about which tax is "better." The only better tax is a lower tax.
IOW - you don't know anything about it and don't want to find out!
That's called the "ostrich syndrome" ... just bury your head in the sand and hope the birds flying over you don't think you're a tree.
Anyone who won't drink your koolaid is just "ignorant" or "stupid".
When any one of you folks own a $150 million dollar a year sub-s family business, and pay personal income taxes in excess of $1 million, a year, let me know, OK?
I don't have to think about it, I know it should die a horrible, painful death.
BUSINESSWEEK = FINANCIAL NEWSWEEK
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