Especially to family farmers. The family ranch that gets passed on for generations that happens to be in the shadow of the Tetons? Oops.
The government it taking it because your heirs can’t afford to pay the taxes on it when you try to pass it on to them because a bunch of millionaires and billionaires decided they liked your surroundings and drove up the price of your land.
It’s frankly criminal.
I guess it’s done to prevent families from becoming virtual loyalty, but it seems massively unjust and punitive.
Maybe you meant royalty? Like the Kennedy clan?
Joe Robbe.
There is a special provision of the tax code, Section 2032A, that deals with just that situation.
It allows for the farmland to be valued at farmland value prices rather than at developer prices.
The original premise for the estate tax was from England and was designed to insure that no family could become more powerful than the king. It was adopted here supposedly on the same basis.
But, if that were the real reason for the tax, the threshold would be be closer to a billion dollars - not five million.
Incorporate the farm and make family shareholders
Or put it all into a trust.