Posted on 10/24/2017 4:26:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
My father built a small business from scratch with years of sweat equity and many weeks and months away from home. He employed about 100 people, and by the end of his working years, the business was highly successful. He became a millionaire. He lived the American dream. He sold a product that people wanted, provided a solid income for many families and gave lots of money to our church and numerous other charities. And every year he paid his taxes. Over the course of his lifetime, he paid millions of dollars in income taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, gas taxes and so on. He died two years ago at age 91.
Should people like my father have to surrender up to 50 percent of their life savings to the government upon death? Do we want to live in a country where half a family business, farm or ranch gets handed over to the IRS when the owner dies?
The GOP tax plan proposes to kill the death tax. Why? Because estate taxes put the entire American concept of the "family business" at risk.
I have met many people who literally sold the farm to pay the taxes. This hurts the economy. It incentivizes business owners to sell their companies and live lavishly during the retirement years so there is little left at their death for the government to snatch. Dying broke beats the taxman but is terrible for future generations who could keep building the business and hiring more workers.
Why would anyone who is 70 or 80 years old and a multimillionaire continue saving, re-investing to grow a family business or working if they can't turn their assets over to their kids or grandkids?
It would be one thing if the death tax actually raised real money for the government. But it doesn't. In 2014, the estate tax collected -- hold on to your hats -- roughly $19 billion, about 0.6 percent of all federal revenues.
Liberals counter that only a tiny percentage of Americans pay the tax. But a tax that collects $19 billion and costs the economy multiple times that amount of money in lost investment and complicated estate tax-planning schemes invented by estate-tax attorneys and accountants is a dumb tax.
George Soros put $18 billion, tax-free, into his foundation, which is run by his family and friends. Soros, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have all hidden their money in such foundations and won't pay a penny of the estate tax. You don't get rich by being stupid.
The death tax doesn't take money from billionaires; they have legions of tax and estate planners to find ways of getting around it. No, this tax is paid by self-made men, such as my father, who built this country. Where's the fairness in that?
The tax code is fundamentally unfair. It gives special privileges to those who bribe lawmakers (called innocently “contributions”) to vote their way.
It is socialist in nature. It takes from those who earn and gives to those who vote for benefits.
It is intentionally complicated, so no one individual will be able to figure out what is really happening. (Transfer of wealth.)
The dems will be crowing “tax cuts for the rich” no matter what changes are made. Screwem.
No one should pay taxes on their labor. Not one penny.
If I agree to provide a service through my labor in exchange for a monetary value then that is a one to one exchange between me and my employer. It is a benefit to both of us.
A third party, (like the faceless bureaucrat in government) has NO RIGHT to my wages which was earned by the sweat of physical activity.
Any tax on labor is partial slavery.
the death tax needs to be abolished too
Paying the Imperial Tax to Caesar
15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax[a] to Caesar or not?”
18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
See even Jesus says we have to pay taxes
The Estate tax is plain theft, and right out of the communist manifesto.
America removed the 10 commandments from schools ...
The Supreme Court compounded its godless and criminal misconduct by banning the Ten Commandments and its moral precepts from classrooms in 1980. Their reasoning was fantastically absurd ...
“[I]f the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments,” which, the Court said, is “not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.”
Call upon Yahshua before it’s TOO LATE!
The daily sacrifice is about to be taken away! (Dan:12, Mat:24
All taxation is theft.
Flavious_Maximus wrote:
“...Any tax on labor is partial slavery.
And any tax on property is paying rent to a landlord, even if the property has no mortgage.
If the rent isn’t paid, the tenant gets evicted.
No difference from being a serf.
For most of us after a lifetime of work paying taxes we retire to pitifully small Social Security checks and those are taxed. And those SS checks have seldom cost of living increases that never keep up with the cost of living.
Meanwhile people who pay no income tax get fairly good sized reimbursements.
Self-made men are a mortal threat to Socialist governance, unlike billionaires who can be bought off and become useful tools in achieving the Revolution. The effects of the estate tax are intentional and part of a larger plan, so the Left will never allow it to be taken away.
Nail, meet hammer.
Fundamentally unfair? The statement does not need to be qualified. Let me change that for you. The Tax Code IS Unfair. It is confiscatory and punishing to success.
EVERYBODY should pay the very same flat rate amount and the total tax shoudl be limited to not more than 10% of the economy. That is an excessive rate of overhead to run any business in my book. If it is good enough for business it is good enough for gubment.
This will never happen though as long as there are politicians who can and do use the tax code as their personal slush fund to reward friends and punish enemies.
There should also be no tax at all on people over 70. They have paid their share. Leave them alone.
We should pay taxes on profit, not on wages earned through labor.
The founding fathers were very wise. This is why they refused to tax labor.
It wasn’t until Woodrow Wilson mandated congress to force Americans to suddenly pay taxes on their labor. May he burn in hell for eternity.
I have met many people who literally sold the farm to pay the taxes.
You want to pay more taxes, then get rid of this tax because it means you will pay more income tax. Your inheritance will not get a stepped up basis in the estate and you will pay capitlal gains tax.
But “getting rid of a tax” sounds good to our itching ears..........
We should pay taxes on profit,
You don’t want to tax labor, many don’t want to tax capital,
That leaves taxing management (decision making).
All taxation is theft.
There is a role for government, limited government.
Personally I think our inheritance tax system is working just fine. Many want to fix this like they did health care.
I don’t want concentration of wealth and power, it is a danger to our freedom. The first 5 million (and increasing)of inheritance is exempt from taxes so small business is preserved.
The rich don’t pay it by the use of trusts but at least if forces some distribution of wealth. Think of what it would be like if Soros could give all his heritance to his son. AT least the power of the money is distributed some.
Not a perfect system but it is the best.
I agree 100% being in a 4th Generation Family business where we employee 300 employees. We are working for the Federal Gov and our employees.
You have to do complicated estate planning that does not always work as you fund it with Life insurance and not the Life insurance companies have issues as they are not solvent and the paid up policies now need to be have double payments made or they lapse. The game is rigged against the family business and keeping wealth that you paid taxes on over a lifetime in the family.
America is a socialist country today.
Wrong you are. Setting up trusts and paying for Life Insurance that is now in question normally paid for some of it. But most family businesses like farms or trucking companies are not cash rich. Their cash is tied up into ill-liquid depreciating assets. Should I put 300 employees out of a job to pay estate taxes when the 3rd generation of a 100+ year old company is closed?
That bar on estate taxes should be set perhaps at a 20 million mark and not as low as 5.2 million per spouse.
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