Posted on 01/04/2010 5:07:50 PM PST by Kaslin
Fiscal Policy: The new year saw the death of the estate tax. But like Freddie Krueger, this epitome of class warfare and wealth redistribution is sure to return to wreak havoc among the living.
Once dubbed the "Paris Hilton" tax, the levy is supposed to target the inherited wealth of the super-rich who really didn't earn it or don't really need so much of it. Or so we're told. But at some point, even inherited wealth was created and taxed in its creation. The death tax is double taxation, and just because you can't take it with you doesn't mean the government should take it from you or your heirs.
The estate tax is mostly gone in 2010 because of language in the 2001 Bush tax cuts that gradually reduced the tax rate to 45% and raised the exemption to $3.5 million in 2009. But in 2011, in the absence of any action, it reverts to prior law with a $1 million exemption and a 55% rate. During this year without an estate tax, many estates will still be subject to the capital gains tax they now avoid.
Though it brings in little revenue, the estate tax has a far-reaching economic impact. Some 5,500 families would have paid a total of $14 billion in estate taxes this year, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. That's $14 billion sucked out of the economy and into government coffers to stimulate nonexistent jobs when its wider circulation could be creating real ones.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Not to mention small family businesses such as farms that will have to be sold to satisfy the tax man.
And why would the tyrants care about independent people?
They want to fawn over workers in a workers’ paradise who are under their total control.
Most people with lower incomes are also against the inheritance tax. I don’t think it will be allowed to come back, unless they use the tactic of making the exemption awfully high.
Bill Gates against repealing the inheritance tax
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_inheritance.html
How do you think Warren Buffet was able to acquire so many companies...heirs were forced to sell to pay estate taxes and he had money.
You know his estate is not going to be taxed...and neither is Bill Gates’.
btt
That’s easy enough for you to say Mr. Gates.
I’d sooner have Linus Torvalds’ advice on this one.
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