Now he has a family farm with assets in total of well over $7,000,000. PLEASE TELL ME EXACTLY WHAT RIGHT THE GOV'T HAS TO STEAL THIS UPON HIS DEATH?!?!?
I congratulate your father on his accomplishments. To answer your question, the right of the government to raise taxes is found in Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes
The right of the Congress to tax income is explicitly granted in the 16th Amendment to the Constitution:
Amendment XVIThe Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Perhaps you find this answer snide, but this is a conservative forum, where we supposedly look to the plain meaning of the Constitution for our anwers. There's your answer. The government, according to our system of government and in compliance with the law, is not "stealing" anything. It is laying taxes. Further, it is the inheritor who is taxed, not the deceased. If you inherit the farm, you will be taxed on it. Thanks to the GOP turning down the Conrad amendment, you will be taxed more than you otherwise would have been.
I don't need your sorry "if it doesn't affect me why should I care" ass coming in here and telling me that this does not affect ordinary people.
I didn't say it doesn't affect "ordinary people", did I? I don't think I would use that phrase. I cited statistics which show the tax as having an effect on a very small segment of the population. If the statistic is wrong, please provide more accurate data. I welcome it.
You are obviously very ignorant about farming. It does not take much for the assets of a farm to be above $7,000,000.
I don't have access to data on the worth of farms. I ran across data for the state of Georgia, which puts the average farm at 600K, well below 7 million. If you have data on farms nationally, I would love to see it. I don't see why anyone would take a position on the effect of this bill on farms without having that data(unless, as in your case, one will stands to gain significantly from the repeal) , although I see there are plenty of people willing to do so.
But I guess those farmers don't deserve it. The assets should be sold so the Gov't can give it to the have nots.
What the government does with its revenues is a separate problem. I think it is the fundamental problem. But it is irrelevant. The fact is that the government will take on its obligations, and someone will have to pay for it. The only way to stop it is to cancel some of those obligations. Unfortunately, by far the biggest part of the pie is Social Security and Medicare, and they are getting bigger still.
People like you make me so angry! It is the principle of the matter. It does not matter if it affects you personally or not. This tax should repealed because it is unjust, unfair, and UNAMERICAN!! PERIOD!
Let me use a baseball analogy. I don't know if you know baseball, but there are two leagues, the AL and the NL. The NL plays by the traditional rules. In the AL, back in the 70's they invented the DH, the Designated Hitter. The DH takes the place of the pitcher in the batting order, because pitchers are lousy batters. The NL never adopted the rule.
Now, let's say I am a manager in the AL and I hate the DH rule. I think it goes against the tradition of baseball, degrades the game, and is principally and fundamentally wrong and bad for the sport. But all the other teams in my league, all my competitors, use the DH, and score more runs than they would without the DH. What should I do?
I don't HAVE to use the DH. I could use the pitcher, on principle. I will lose more games, and give all my competitors an edge over me. It won't induce any of the other teams to stop using the DH. It won't elevate the principle. It will simply cost me. Why do it?
That's how I see this situation. The government appropriates money. Once that happens, it's spent. And once it's spent, someone will have to pay for it. Why should I support a bill that will result in me paying more taxes on my income, so that someone else can pay less? Why should I transfer someone else's tax burden to me? Principle? What principle is that? The principle of being a sucker? Farmers get a lot of money from the government, if I am not mistaken. Hell, how many billions of dollars went out this year alone to farmers? I'll tell you what, once I see farmers marching on Washington demanding an end to crop subsidies and all the other goodies, I'll march with them to relieve them of their tax burden.
Hard work should be rewarded not penalized.
Actually, the government should stay out of the way as much as possible. I don't believe "hard work" should be especially rewarded. Productivity should be rewarded in the free market. If some fella can get rich without breaking a sweat, he is no less entitled to the rewards than someone who busts his hump 18 hours a day. Don't mistake movement for progress. What the government should do is appropriate money necessary for doing its business, and lay taxes to come up with the necessary loot. We all get our income taxed, and we all think we are taxed too much, but each of us has some gubmint program that we aren't willing to give up, and when you add them all up, it costs what is costs, and the government taxes what it taxes.
Consider this: With all that taxation going on, we are still billions and billions of dollars in debt. And demographically, that is going to get WORSE. I am 34 years old. I have been hearing with increasing regularity ever since the early 90s that I will end up paying an incredibly high tax to pay for the boomers Social Security benefits. I could scream and shout WHAT GIVES THEM THE RIGHT??IT'S UNJUST!!! Are any retirement age farmers going to step up and take on that burden for me? I doubt it. And why would they?
Okay, rant over.
I see your rant and raise you one :-)
The 16th Amendment says refers to taxing income not estates. Plus that income has already been taxed once.
Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; </P
The estate tax is not "uniform" as not all people have to pay it. Of course, the progressive income tax is not uniform either.
BTW, you are right in your "hard work" versus productivity argument. There should not be a death tax on any estate regardless of how it is earned. I didn't mean to apply that I meant otherwise. I didn't word that very well. But hard work usually leads to productivity. Atleast that has been my experience.
The lifetime exclusion amount on estates is only $1,000,000 right now which increases to $1.5 million in 2002 and 2003. It does not take a very large farm to meet that amount and the estate is not in liquid assets which means the inheritor has to sell off the business assets to cover it. That makes it kind of hard to sustain a business.
Don't have the farm data you requested, but somehow I suspect farms in Georgia are not as large as those in Kansas, but I could be wrong.:-)
You will be happy to know that my father is completely AGAINST farm subsidies. He thinks the markets should be left to operate freely. If he wanted farm subsidies wouldn't he vote Democrap? Considering this discussion, you are much more likely to vote Democrap than he or I.
Besides, the death tax raises very little net revenue, if any, after the cost of assessing it. It is simply a redistribution of wealth. Our country has the second highest death tax in the world and I thought this was the USA we were living in!