Dukie, I wish I'd known you'd replied here before I replied to your private message. I won't reiterate that reply beyond saying that the above is my sense of Article IV, Section 2, paragraph 1, too.
BTW, I went and read your excellent editorial on Pennsylvania's inheritance tax that ran in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on March 24th. Congratulations on an extremely well-conceived, well-reasoned, and well-written piece! Did you post it here at FR? Wish you would if you haven't! It's got lots of stuff in it I could get really "exercised" about, especially this silly notion that an inheritance tax is "justified" on "social equity" principles to break up intergenerational concentrations of wealth.... Looks to me like the Penn. inheritance tax is a tad irrational, as you ably demonstrate.
Thanks for writing, Dukie. All my very best, bb.
Joanie - here's betty boop's review of my little essay. .
Congratulations on an extremely well-conceived, well-reasoned, and well-written piece!
I couldn't agree more, b-b.
Chris and I both lost our beloved Dads within a couple of weeks time at the end of last year. And we were both designated executors of our Dads' estates. We not only compared notes regarding the loss of the two men who were the greatest influences in our lives, but we also compared notes as to how the state of Pennsylvania profits through its unconstitutional (both state and federal) inheritance tax.
Chris's article in the Trib-Review really encapsulates the obscenity known as the Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax, in that the tax defies the uniformity on the same class of subjects clause of the PA Constitution. The tax also smacks of social engineering in that its historical foundation is an attempt to move concentrations of wealth in future generations so as to create, through government dictate, more economic parity. The fourth and fifth amendments to the US Constitution are also assaulted through this tax, since provisions in it come very close to (if not define) unreasonable search and seizure, and the requirement to self-incrimination.
Chris hits all bases in his article. It would be nice if some of our state legislators would read it, and take it to heart. They need not wait for the courts to declare the tax unconstitutional (not that such a logical step is even in the works). A simple repeal is in order. But, being the realists that we are, Chris and I are not holding our mutual breaths awaiting that particular turn of events....yet he is being about as pro-active in this regard as a citizen of the commonwealth can be, having done much research into the subject, and written so eloquently regarding his findings.