Bye, Bye Estate Tax!

[GePap]

Ahem: just for the record:
The dead have no rights, period. Whatever wealth has been accumulated by an individual who now happens to be dead is a choice society makes, since the person with the rights no longer exists.

This is, after all, why I am trying to leave them something.

If your estate is big enough to fall under the estate tax, they will certainly have somehting.

As for your fairness issue Imran: since when are you an advoctae of fairness? The etstae tax is just one of those things the rich must deal with. Another way to fainess, allow no such thing as estates.

[Sava]

standing in the way of progressive reform that would help millions sounds pretty evil to me... what do the dem's do that's more evil than that? getting bJ's from interns?

[rah]

The Death tax, has almost totally wiped out family farms.

The farmers only asset is their land. They borrow against it all their lives and basically survive season to season. But when they die, they can't pass it on to their children because their children (many that have helped dad work the land their entire life) can't afford the taxes, so the farm gets broken up and purchased by corporate farms.

If you think these farmers are the super rich in America, you're just blind.

The number of acres tilled by family farmers has decreased almost every year in the last 3 decades.

But if you want all of America's farmland controlled by evil giant corporations........................fine, but don't say that removing the death tax is only going to help the super rich. A lot of honest hard working American Farmers will also be helped.

RAH

[Sava]

RAH:

Farms and family-owned business assets account for less than four percent of all assets in taxable estates valued at less than $5 million. Only a small fraction of the estate tax is paid on the value of farms and small family businesses.
Family-owned businesses and farms are eligible for special treatment under current law, including a higher exemption. The total exemption for most estates that include a family-owned business is $1.3 million in 2001, rather than $675,000. A couple can exempt up to $2.6 million of an estate that includes a family-owned business or farm.
Still another feature of current law allows deferral of estate tax payments for up to 14 years when the value of a family-owned business or farm accounts for at least 35 percent of an estate, with interest charged at rates substantially below market rates.
Claims that family-owned businesses have to be liquidated to pay estate taxes imply that most of the value of the estate is tied up in the businesses. But businesses or farms constitute the majority of the assets in very few estates that include family-owned businesses or farms. A Treasury Department analysis of data for 1998 shows that in only 776 of the 47,482 estates that were taxable that year — or just 1.6 percent of taxable estates — did family-owned businesses assets (such as closely held stock, non-corporate businesses, or partnerships) equal at least half of the gross estate. In only 642 estates — 1.4 percent of the taxable estates — did farm assets, or farm assets and farm real estate, equal at least half of the gross estate.

from the http://www.cbpp.org/5-25-00tax.htm I posted earlier...

[Sava]

plus, if it's small farms you're worried about... then lobby for the removal of subsidies to large corporate farms... you'll get large Republican opposition

[Imran Siddiqui]

As for your fairness issue Imran: since when are you an advoctae of fairness?

Everyone on every side is an advocate of fairness... they just see what is fair in different ways.

The dead have no rights, period.

That's a non-issue, btw... because as soon as the guy dies, his estate and assets are transfered over. In property law you can't have a period where no one owns the estate at all. If the guy has issue or a will, then it automatically transfers. If he doesn't have either, then it automatically escheats to the state.

[monolith94]

Bye bye, budget surplus!

[monolith94]

They say you can't take it with you. The american government is just the enforcer.

[Sava]

they just see what is fair in different ways.

Absolutely correct. Some people are concerned with fairness for 0.3% of America, others care about the other 99.7%

[Kidlicious]

I don't really have much to say about this except that the greed and irresponsibility makes me sick.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I think that inheritences should be taxed at 100%.

The flipside is, why the hell are the Republicans trying to bankrupt the Federal government?

-So they have an excuse to take out social security and other programmes they don't like.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Absolutely correct. Some people are concerned with fairness for 0.3% of America, others care about the other 99.7%

Yes, those shameful communists who only want fairness for party members (ie, 0.3% of the population) .

So they have an excuse to take out social security and other programmes they don't like.

That's what I was thinking... and if it's the reason, what a brilliant move. Gotta break some eggs before you make an omelet, after all.

[Sava]

That is good Imran. Hopefully Republican policies will **** things up so bad that progressives can band together and storm Washington to install a REAL democracy.

viva la revolucion

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ha ha... you wish.. actually you do .

It'll never happen. That last liberal with a chance was Richard Nixon . Even the Dems are fiscally centrists these days.

[Berzerker]

"How can it be fair to give the wealthiest 10,000 families in America a bonanza?" said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

There you have the liberal mindset, you aren't "giving" anything, you're stealing less.

GePap -

Theft is defined by the state.

Really? Then how was it defined before the state came into existence or was there just no theft back then?

Sava - I don't know what the current thresh hold for the estate tax is, but it was ~$600,000 just a couple years ago. And thanks to inflation, another government tax, many many people will have taxable estates (including state inheritance taxes). This has led to children having to sell off family businesses/farms to pay the estate tax.