Quote:
Originally Posted by MRM
Rick, every loterry winner in the country is taxed. No one is talking about taking an entire lottery prize from the winner or taking an entire estate from the heirs. It costs money to run the government. Roads, bridges, border patrol, court system, cops, FDA, even the IRS cost money. If you can get the country to agree to cut spending to 1950s levels, go ahead and eliminate the estate tax. until then, it is an eminently fair way to raise the revenue necessary to run the government. It is fair to tax the rich more than the middle class because they can afford it and because they benefited more from society's advantages such as roads and bridges and a system of economic freedom (made possible by the governmental system and paid for by taxes) than the average person.
By definition, NO estate tax is taxed on earned income. Until you can find a better source of money to replace the lost revenue on estates over $5 million, then it doesn't make much sense to eliminate the estate tax. Unless you think it's more fair to make working people making $50-$100,000 a year pay it. Those are the choices.
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Complete socialist drivel. Lotto winners are taxed as if the money were income. Estates are built with income that was already taxed when it was earned, taxed again with real estate taxes, taxed again with sales taxes, maybe taxed again as cap. gains and finally taxed again at death. It's outrageous. Why should people have to do any estate planning other writing up a will? Because the gov't. will take it otherwise.
One of my dear friends, whose dad owned a 100 acre dairy farm in NJ, was slapped with a $900k tax bill as soon as his dad passed away. The dad didn't know anything about estate planning, the farm had dilapidated during his long illness and he had sold the development rights long ago. So his kids could not even sell the farm to pay off the IRS because the land was blocked from development and not viable as a farm without major investment. How is this even approaching fair or right? Why should other small businesses be forced into sale just to come up with the cash to pay off the IRS because the owner died?