Elon Musk Says He Back Estate Tax, Hated by Rich People

Business Insider ^ | December 2021 | Tim Levin and Taiyler Simone Mitchell

[ProgressingAmerica]

Elon Musk has made it clear he's against a wealth tax on the richest Americans that could leave him with an annual tax bill in the billions. But he thinks taxing inheritances is a good idea.

"Generally, I think the estate tax is a good tax," the Tesla CEO said at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit in response to a question about how billionaires should be taxed.

[ProgressingAmerica]

The devil's advocate in me says that death taxes can't really be all that bad, can they? Theodore Roosevelt loved the idea too.

We're all anti-capitalists now.

[Still Thinking]

But it’s all money that already got taxed when earned. How is the government entitled to another bite?

[Army Air Corps]

Yeah, screw small businesses including farms.

[proust]

Big surprise, he’s also all in for the carbon tax.

“My top recommendation, honestly, would be just add a carbon tax”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/12/elon-musk-reducing-greenhouse-gas-emissions-with-a-carbon-tax.html

[adorno]

But he thinks taxing inheritances is a good idea.

No matter what kind of tax it is, and/or who is being taxed, one simple fact remains...

And that is that, when the government taxes away, there will be less for investments and for private spending and for the American people to decide how they want to spend that money. Government is most times, not good at spending or deciding for the people where and when to spend that people's money.

[Secret Agent Man]

He’s an idiot on this issue. Totally pure idiot.

[Brookhaven]

The estate tax cutoff is set high enough that it won’t affect most people.

Still, I’m against it.

• Builds wealth and saves their entire life so they can leave money to their children
• Builds wealth and spends it on wine, women, and song—on themselves
• Builds wealth and gives it to a charity (which builds a monument, like a building, in their name)

Why should the first person be penalized and the others rewarded? They both earned the money. Leaving money to your children is just as a legitimate goal in life as spending it or giving it away to charity.

[ProgressingAmerica]

Here is how TR explained it:

I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes, beyond a certain amount, either given in life or devised or bequeathed upon death to any individual-a tax so framed as to put it out of the power of the owner of one of these enormous fortunes to hand on more than a certain amount to any one individual; the tax of course, to be imposed by the national and not the state government.

Such taxation should, of course, be aimed merely at the inheritance or transmission in their entirety of those fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits. Again, the national government must in some form exercise supervision over corporations engaged in interstate business-and all large corporations engaged in interstate business-whether by license or otherwise, so as to permit us to deal with the far reaching evils of overcapitalization.

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/teddyrooseveltmuckrake.htm

I don't agree with it. But that's the rationale (or one of them) that progressives labor under.

[jagusafr]

and at 45-55%. I do estate planning and probate law and when the exemption was $1M and the estate consisted largely of real estate or investments, often the not-as-wealthy heirs had to sell everything in the estate in order to pay the estate taxes, meaning they don’t get what they were intended to get.

[digger48]

A local farm family has one brother that is a licensed cpa.

The family is his only clients

He spends his time looking for tax breaks and subsidies

The day a new child in the family is born, they get a farm and a new corporation

He told me this himself

[beekay]

A better option is to stop the ever increasing federal government spending that begets more waste. That would eliminate the ever present need for more taxes.

[ptsal]

Elon should stick to electricity and making a net profit.

[ProgressingAmerica]

It wouldn’t surprise me that progressives view that as collateral damage in their economic war.

[Army Air Corps]

It is a goal. Progressives are, by nature, control freaks. They HATE the idea that we, the mere peasants, not only acquire wealth, but may pass it along to our heirs.

[ConjunctionJunction]

Collateral damage? No, I would argue that small businesses are an intended target. They are modern day kulaks.

[The Unknown Republican]

The uber rich have for the most part embraced progressivism and death/inheritance taxes because it helps to protect their power from the nouveau riche.

[GaryCrow]

I hate the estate tax because it's fundamentally immoral. It'll likely never affect me because my estate won't be big enough, but not being affected by it isn't a reason to support something that's intrinsically wrong. As a guy I'll likely never be affected by rape either, but that doesn't make it OK.

Someone's property should be theirs to do with as they wish without government taking. Those assets have already been taxed, the government had it's cut already and someone's death should not entitle the government to more of it. It's just fundamentally wrong, that's why I'm against it. I don't care if it's a farmer or Bill Gates, wrong is wrong.

[fireman15]

Musk knows that nearly every dime in assets he has will be protected from taxation when he dies by having it all under corporate and foundation control. What he is talking about has no effect on him or any heirs he has. The inheritance tax is to be paid only by the little people.

[EEGator]

Bipolar. Some ideas are great, and some are this…

[SecondAmendment]

I guess Tesla’s ESG score is finally effecting him ...