Post #272,360
11/6/06 8:49:01 AM
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Struck a nerve, did I?
:-)
I think I've plowed this ground before, but to briefly recap. My views are:
1) Vast accumulated wealth is bad for society. It gives too much power over long periods of time to families. It removes incentives for following generations to create new wealth (they instead spend their time protecting what Great Grandpa created). It helps create an aristocracy of wealth in a country that is supposed to be egalitarian.
2) Those who have vast fortunes (the top fraction of 1%) are in a much better position to pay a fair share of the costs of society than someone in, say, the bottom 25% of incomes. The rich have much more invested in the society than the poor, as TR pointed out, so they should be willing to pay more to help lift society as a whole.
3) In the US, very few estates are taxed as it is, yet it's an important source of revenue for the Federal government. If inheritance taxes are abolished, that money has to come from somewhere.
4) Few, in the US anyway, are talking about some sort of leveling tax that cedes huge fortunes directly to the US Treasury. That's certainly not what I'm looking for. I think a graduated rate peaking at something like the top marginal Federal Income Tax rate would be fair; kicking in at say $5M or $10M or $50M or so.
I don't see inheritance taxes as "double taxation" and I don't see it as unfair. We can argue about what level of estate should be taxed, and we can argue about the rate, but I think the idea of an estate tax is a good one and it should be maintained.
I don't find arguments like, "The rich have lawyers and accountants so they can get out of it, so no-one should have to pay it" to be persuasive. Tighten the loopholes, don't throw out the tax. We don't abolish sales taxes because people don't pay them at yard sales, or don't pay them when they visit their drug dealer, for example.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #272,361
11/6/06 9:02:15 AM
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Re: Struck a nerve, did I?
:-) I think I've plowed this ground before, but to briefly recap. My views are: 1) Vast accumulated wealth is bad for society. It gives too much power over long periods of time to families. It removes incentives for following generations to create new wealth (they instead spend their time protecting what Great Grandpa created). It helps create an aristocracy of wealth in a country that is supposed to be egalitarian. That will always exist on some scale in any society where some people have more stuff than other people. You cannot legislate or tax it away. Well, you can; we call it "North Korea". 2) Those who have vast fortunes (the top fraction of 1%) are in a much better position to pay a fair share of the costs of society than someone in, say, the bottom 25% of incomes. The rich have much more invested in the society than the poor, as TR pointed out, so they should be willing to pay more to help lift society as a whole. The rich, generally speaking, have much more invested offshore than the poor. In fact, your paragraph here is positively socialist; I thought the "American Way" was "Pay Your Way"? 3) In the US, very few estates are taxed as it is, yet it's an important source of revenue for the Federal government. If inheritance taxes are abolished, that money has to come from somewhere. In the UK, a paltry \ufffd3.6B was raised from inheritance tax last year - the square root of fuck all, in government accountancy terms. By contrast, some \ufffd80B was wasted by the government. What's that about tails, dogs and the wagging thereof? 4) Few, in the US anyway, are talking about some sort of leveling tax that cedes huge fortunes directly to the US Treasury. That's certainly not what I'm looking for. I think a graduated rate peaking at something like the top marginal Federal Income Tax rate would be fair; kicking in at say $5M or $10M or $50M or so. I don't see inheritance taxes as "double taxation" and I don't see it as unfair. We can argue about what level of estate should be taxed, and we can argue about the rate, but I think the idea of an estate tax is a good one and it should be maintained. It's double taxation (a tax on stuff just cuz) whether you see it as that or not. I don't find arguments like, "The rich have lawyers and accountants so they can get out of it, so no-one should have to pay it" to be persuasive. Tighten the loopholes, don't throw out the tax. We don't abolish sales taxes because people don't pay them at yard sales, or don't pay them when they visit their drug dealer, for example. What have informal yard sales and illegal narcotics transactions got to do with sales tax?
Peter
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Post #272,364
11/6/06 9:45:19 AM
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please prove point one
I need names of families that have been rich longer than 200 years that are still rich. I think you will find its wealth to welfare in 4 generations for the most part.
thanx,
bill
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 50 years. meep
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Post #272,375
11/6/06 10:45:17 AM
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Why 200 years?
Consider the [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_family|Rockefellers] and the [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Pont_family|DuPonts] and the [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanderbilt|Vanderbilts] to name just 3 prominent families. They still count many millionaires, through inheritance, (some millionaires scores of times over) a hundred or more years after the fortune was built.
Inheritance taxes didn't seem to harm them too much.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #272,388
11/6/06 12:05:11 PM
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Now explain why your examples
rule our country aristocratically and also why they cannot decide how to disburse their wealth to the poor without government intercession.
thanx,
bill
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 50 years. meep
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Post #272,391
11/6/06 12:36:07 PM
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And ask Carnegie about giving back
Maybe Bill Gates will build some libraries.
Beside Bill...the government is way better qualified to decide how to spend your money when your dead than your wife and children are, ya know?
(I don't really need the sign, do I?)
Too much of today's music is fashionable crap dressed as artistry.Adrian Belew
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Post #272,449
11/6/06 8:54:00 PM
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Thing about Carnegie
I heard him discussed on the radio recently. He believed if he paid his employees more, they would simply spend the money on meat and clothes and alcohol. Much better to keep them in line and give them the things they really need: parks and libraries and colleges. The average American can't be trusted to make important decisions like that.
===
Kip Hawley is still an idiot.
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
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Post #272,466
11/7/06 8:48:30 AM
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Standard view of society
by a economic mind. An individual, when given choice, will choose to better himself and not society. That is how you get the basic tenants of government (ie to provide for common defense, etc.)
Too much of today's music is fashionable crap dressed as artistry.Adrian Belew
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Post #272,402
11/6/06 12:59:21 PM
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I guess I'm not making myself clear.
I do not think the Republic will soon end if the Federal Estate Tax is abolished. (Ben T. and [link|http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/july-dec02/democracy_7-17.html|Kevin Phillips] might have a different view.) I think of it primarily as a source of revenue, and a way to help decrease the unproductive accumulation and hoarding of wealth by generations of people.
I don't know the details, and I welcome correction if I'm wrong, but it's my impression that the tax code and especially estate taxes helped cause the creation of things like the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, etc., that helps to some extent to spread the wealth. Without tax implications breathing down their neck, I don't think that the Gates Foundation would spend the 5% of their assets every year that they're required to do under the law (as they just barely meet the rule 5% now).
I'm trying to present a pragmatic picture of why the Estate Tax is a good idea. I don't like the idea of an aristocracy that persists for generations in the economy or in politics. As is pointed out in [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=272324|Lamb], change is necessary and change is good. I also believe that Andrew Carnegie, for example, would not have done the good he did if he had inhereted his wealth from his father.
The issue for me isn't charity - it isn't that the government knows better how to spend a billionaire's wealth than he does. It's that concentrations of wealth that persist in a family for generations are unproductive. Tax money that they don't pay has to come from others in society - others who often just barely get by themselves.
Investment is important and should be rewarded. But so is working for a living. It seems that over the last 30 years or so the US has rewarded investment - which is often passive income - much more than income earned from work. I think the balance should probably be shifted back a bit.
I think I've about had my say. I'll close with a question for you and Peter:
If the Estate Tax is abolished, what will you use to replace the revenue? For instance, [link|http://www.cbpp.org/3-16-05tax.htm|estimates] are that under current law (no estate tax in 2010, reinstated in 2011), $290 B would be lost to the Treasury by 2015 if the Estate Tax is abolished after 2010 - $72 B in 2015 alone. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the funding can't come from reductions in "waste, fraud and abuse."
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #272,411
11/6/06 1:32:13 PM
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I dont think you understand economics very well
. It's that concentrations of wealth that persist in a family for generations are unproductive. Tax money that they don't pay has to come from others in society - others who often just barely get by themselves. do you think they have all of the money under the bed and hidden in closets? That money is used to generate income which is then after paying costs, taxed. The profit is re-invested, then after costs taxed again. Current long term capital gains tax is 2005, the maximum capital gains rates are 5, 15, 25 or 28 percent.per the IRS so on top of sales tax, property tax, tax tax you wish to impose draconian fees on the rich when they die. That is social engineering. Think of all the accountants, lawyers, secretaries, file clerks, janitors, maids, drivers, cooks that you will throw out of work because the person they work for is unproductively wealthy, Sorry I dont by into that.If you barely get by with 40k a year for a family of 4 then you are not paying much income tax anyway so taxing the wealthy on death wont help those folks "who are barely getting by" thanx, bill Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 50 years. meep
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Post #272,415
11/6/06 1:39:12 PM
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Re: I guess I'm not making myself clear.
If the Estate Tax is abolished, what will you use to replace the revenue? For instance, [link|http://www.cbpp.org/3-16-05tax.htm|estimates] are that under current law (no estate tax in 2010, reinstated in 2011), $290 B would be lost to the Treasury by 2015 if the Estate Tax is abolished after 2010 - $72 B in 2015 alone. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the funding can't come from reductions in "waste, fraud and abuse." I'll assume no such thing, ta very much. If our ickle gubmint can fuck up to the tune of \ufffd80B a year, I'm sure your fine establishment can manage to arse up \ufffd70B a year.
Peter
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