So it’s okay with you to let the government tax an asset that the parent created and leaves to his kids at his death at a tax rate of 43%, even after the parent has already paid taxes on the same asset? And why would you care? If Bezos pays no taxes it’s because the tax laws are written so he doesn’t. Besides this article is not correct. The tax is owed at the estimated Asset value at the time of the parents death. So the exemption from tax is being lowered to $1m from $22m. So on a $22m family farm the tax would be $8m. And you think that’s okay? This why family farms have to be sold. Most of these Assets are family businesses with employees who will lose their jobs. And that’s okay with you? This is the kind of evil that all of us are facing, but you think it’s okay. At $1m exemption, Estate taxes will hurt all of us.
The exemption includes an important provision, though: The family farm is only exempt from the estate tax if the next generation continues to run it as a farm.
I know some families where the second generation complained endlessly that they had to sell the family farm in order to pay estate taxes. In every case, the people doing the whining had no interest in farming. The second generation were middle-aged adults who worked as successful professionals -- usually in big cities hundreds of miles away from the "family farm" -- and they hadn't done any farming since the day the left home for college.