Posted on 03/26/2021 8:23:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently introduced an estate tax plan that specifically lists the wealthiest Americans amid a large push by the Biden administration for tax hikes largely affecting corporations and high-income Americans.
"The fairest way to reduce wealth inequality, invest in the disappearing middle class, and preserve our democracy is to enact a progressive estate tax on the inherited wealth of multi-millionaires and billionaires," the proposal stated.
The “For the 99.5% Act” from Sanders would raise $430 billion over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, and would only affect the top 0.5% of Americans. Just reverting the tax rates to 2009 levels — which President Joe Biden has proposed — would bring in less revenue, or $281 billion over 10 years, according to estimates by the Tax Foundation.
"Under this legislation," the proposal noted above a list of billionaires in America, "the families of all 657 billionaires in America who have a combined net worth of over $4.26 trillion would owe up to $2.7 trillion in estate taxes."
An estate tax is a taxation on the transfer of wealth from a deceased person.
Sanders' estate tax plan would exempt the first $3.5 million of an individual's estate from the tax and $7 million for joint filers. Estates valued between $3.5 million and $10 million would be taxed at 45%, those between $10 million and $50 million at 50%, those between $50 million and $1 billion at 55%, and the tax rate for estates valued at over $1 billion would be taxed at 65%. (The bill would also end tax breaks for dynasty trusts and close some loopholes.)
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
It wouldn’t mean that at all. They’d just figure out how to move the money and assets around to avoid the taxes.
There are what, over 70,000 pages in the tax code, they’ll find something. And if it isn’t there now, it will be in the very near future.
I am losing sympathy for the elites who have become radicalized including corporate officers. They’re reaping what they’ve sown.
But we all know all of these “soak the rich” schemes only wind up soaking the middle class.
Goodbye family farms & corporations. They would have to be liquidated to pay the Federal Government. Just as the UK has done.
Bernie understands nothing or cares nothing for the destructive nature of his ideology.
$3.5 million is not a lot of money nowadays.
All you have to do is invest in several RENTAL properties for the past two decades and your assets will easily reach $3.5 million.
Anybody who wisely invested in the stock market for retirement during his working years for over 3 decades could have amassed assets of $3.5 million.
THESE ARE NOT THE “ELITES”.
How does the fedgov swiping people’s inheritance help the middle class?
America is Taxed Enough Already
Not only are the rates high, they are only proposed FEDERAL rates. A number of states impose their own estate and inheritance taxes.
Interestingly, I remember in the pre-Bush years, when the estate exemption was much lower ($500 or 600K), that there was a unified state and federal tax rate. When the Bush era law raising the exemption came into play, many states passed laws so they could “get theirs” directly.
When you combine a proposed 45% Federal tax with a graduated state tax that can be 15%, you are talking about near confiscation above a set limit. And, you can play games with that limit, e.g., eliminating basis step-up for inherited assets.
>>I am losing sympathy for the elites who have become radicalized including corporate officers. They’re reaping what they’ve sown.
Same here, by and large the vote democratic, so I say tax the h*ll out of them.
Billionaires are lefties. Why should we care? I’ll wait for them to come for my 401k but it might not end up going too far on it’s own.
Or they will move to another country. That is increasingly becoming an option for rich folks who are tired of being fleeced by the commies in DC.
Of course the real point is why is the federal government taking anything from private citizens theyve worked a life time for. Straight up Marxism.
“ They’d just figure out how to move the money and assets around to avoid the taxes.”
Really. Bill Gates could set up a trust or non-profit that pays his kids a billion a year. His kids’ money would be taxed as income, not inheritance.
Bernie has said “Billionaires should not exist. Period.”
So obviously he plans to take their money. Once it is started, it will be found “not enough” and it will be expanded.
I know this will not affect bezos, gates or soros at all.
Bernie regards the destruction as a feature, not a bug. This is resentment driven. Bernie is a professional grifter, basically a bum, who never held down a real job until college kids and hippies started electing him to office. His politics are those of a classic socialist: a perpetual rage against competent people who achieve at a level beyond said socialist. Such people experience daily interactions with competent people as an endless series of petty humiliations. Their response is hatred of those whose example shames them.
A $7 million estate (husband and wife) isn’t enough to guarantee generations of luxury for multiple descendants, even though it seems a lot in one place.
But many of those rich folks, the 0.5% of rich folks that Bernie wants to go after, are the ones funding the Democratic Party. They aren’t going to get bit by the ones they’re feeding.
How does the estate tax work for joint filers? Do they have to shoot themselves in the same tax year, or otherwise die, to achieve the higher limits?
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