Death Taxes

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola
The poor person, becasue the rich arrange for private security, which is a 100 or so times more effective than the (existing) public police forces. Look at your crime statistics, and see who criminals target. Take aways the public police, and the rich have there own private security, and the por have none.

Who protect the rich person with the smaller private security from the rich person with the larger private security?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Besides, we aren't just talking about police forces, but also infrastructure maintainence and the sort which has a greater effect on the bottom lines of the rich that own the multinationals than the poor who buy stuff from them.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola
The poor person, becasue the rich arrange for private security, which is a 100 or so times more effective than the (existing) public police forces. Look at your crime statistics, and see who criminals target. Take aways the public police, and the rich have there own private security, and the por have none.

poor people are easier targets than rich people for theft and burglary (access, location, lack of police control, unwillingness to contact police if victimized, distrust of police).

as a criminal do you target high risk high reward people or low risk low reward people?

in most parts you could argue the poor already dont have a public police department working for them.

[Dauphin]

I'm surprised no one has suggested that the recipients of the inheritance should be the assessed person on the tax, rather than the deceased. After all, if you are arguing about taxing the rich, why is a poor inheritor receiving the same tax treatment as the rich inheritor?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Dauphin
I'm surprised no one has suggested that the recipients of the inheritance should be the assessed person on the tax, rather than the deceased. After all, if you are arguing about taxing the rich, why is a poor inheritor receiving the same tax treatment as the rich inheritor?

You can gift a certain amount before you die tax free. That way you avoid estate tax. That makes the tax progressive. If you assess the inheritor based on how much wealth they had I think you would need a whole different system.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Kidicious
nostromo,

50% tax seems like a lot, but govt is expensive. I'm sure your mom worked hard. I don't argue with that. But taxes need to be paid. You talk about cutting waste. That's all fine, but you need to be specific and the majority needs to agree with your cuts. If they don't then the taxes need to be paid, and there's no reason, except political, to complain about it anymore than you complain about any other of your expenses.

In Canada, abolish the Governor General and the Senate and reinvest those millions of dollars in something actually worthwile. And those are the obvious examples of money wasted and mismanagement.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Kidicious


You can gift a certain amount before you die tax free. That way you avoid estate tax. That makes the tax progressive. If you assess the inheritor based on how much wealth they had I think you would need a whole different system.

You could do it based on income and treat inheritance as income receivable over a given period of time. As I understand the US tax system, gifts over a certain level are assessed as income anyway.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Again, just curious (having never inherited anything):

Why not just treat an inheritance the same way you'd treat winning the lottery? You win the lottery, your winnings become part of your income in the year or years in which you take them, and you pay taxes according to the income bracket they've pushed you up into that year. No separate category, no fuss, no muss.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Dauphin
You could do it based on income and treat inheritance as income receivable over a given period of time.
As I understand the US tax system, gifts over a certain level are assessed as income anyway.

The thing that I see is that people who inherit money don't really have to work. They can choose not to. If you count inheritance as income you are going to put them in a higher tax bracket and add a lot of tax on them. They could avoid a lot of tax by choosing not to work and then as much tax won't be collected.

You could take into consideration past income, but that's kind of weird.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Ramo

None of those examples is an example of multiple taxation. Property taxes are, the death tax is, and any kind of wealth tax would be. Why is is necessary to tax multiple times? In the case of wealth and property tax both can be used to produce income, but in that case just tax the income.

Sure it is. Widget part sales + widget sales + corporate profits + capital gains + personal sales is quintuple taxation! There are plenty of examples of multiple taxation in society. Say federal income + state income + sales + excise + property. Teh horror!

No, Federal income + state income(or sales tax as the case may be) are two different taxes for two different levels of government.

And why are two 10% taxes at a fundamental level any worse than one 19% tax? Such a silly objection...

One tax is simpler than two, especially if they are going to tax exactly the same thing, and be spent on exactly the same project.

Why do we do it? To incentivize certain behavior (i.e. buy widgets instead of hording huge amounts of money for your heirs to create an aristocratic class) and to place the burden of funding the government on those who can most afford to do so.

It won't effect that change though. The people at the top will find a way around it, and the people at the very bottom will be inflated into it.

[Kidlicious]

I would think people would object more to being taxed by two different levels of government than being taxed on both income and wealth. Being taxed by two levels of govt is much more effective.

[Whoha]

If they object to the federal system then it can be changed.

[Imran Siddiqui]

If they object to "double taxation" then it can be changed as well. That's not a compelling argument.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Whoha
If they object to the federal system then it can be changed.

The point is that they don't object to it, because they don't realize how much they pay. The react to rhetoric like "death tax" though.

[Whoha]

How about my argument where this will be like every other tax on the "super rich", ie they find away around it, and the rest of us get inflated into it?

Originally posted by Kidicious
The point is that they don't object to it, because they don't realize how much they pay. The react to rhetoric like "death tax" though.

The federal system doesn't exist soley to hide taxation from the unwashed masses.