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Obama Plans to Keep Estate Tax
Wall Street Journal ^ | 12 Jan 2009 | Jonathan Weisman

Posted on 01/12/2009 4:50:56 AM PST by docbnj

The Senate Finance Committee will move within weeks on legislation to reverse that law, and Mr. Obama is expected to detail his estate-tax preservation proposal in his budget next month, congressional tax writers said. Under the Obama plan detailed during the campaign, the estate tax would be locked in permanently at the rate and exemption levels that took effect this year. That would exempt estates of $3.5 million -- $7 million for couples -- from any taxation. The value of estates above that would be taxed at 45%.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: deathtax; estatetax; obama; obamatransitionfile; tax; taxes
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To: brytlea

While I don’t disagree on that point, I want to know why. What is bad about our nation’s long term families establishing a base of wealth? This policy is about the most anti-American policy I can think of.


21 posted on 01/12/2009 5:44:05 AM PST by DoughtyOne (I see that Kenya's favorite son has a new weekly Saturday morning radio show.)
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To: DustyMoment
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=9706

The U.S. Senate has followed the House in voting to repeal the estate tax. Estate tax supporters claimed that from the beginning, it was designed to redistribute wealth. But history shows the it existed solely for revenue purposes until the 1930s.

snip

President Franklin Roosevelt raised the top rate to 60 percent in 1934, and to 70 percent in 1935. The same bill increased the top income tax rate to 75 percent and increased corporate taxes. Altogether the law raised just $250 million annually.

22 posted on 01/12/2009 5:45:20 AM PST by brytlea (You can fool enough of the people enough of the time.)
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To: silverleaf

Hmmm...a tax that’s really just good for attorneys and tax consultants? ;)


23 posted on 01/12/2009 5:46:33 AM PST by brytlea (You can fool enough of the people enough of the time.)
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To: indylindy

“The lazy poor who voted for Obama because they believed this hope and change BS will soon come to their day of reckoning.”

Is that ever true! Especially for the slobs who actually thought the Great and Wonderful O would pay their rent and gas expenses.


24 posted on 01/12/2009 5:46:46 AM PST by ScottinVA (All I needed to know about islam I learned on 9-11.)
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To: DoughtyOne

I agree with you, but to a socialist family wealth is BAD. Well, unless it’s THEIR family wealth. But, for some reason this is a fairly easy argument to make among the poor masses. I think it really all comes back to class envy.


25 posted on 01/12/2009 5:49:28 AM PST by brytlea (You can fool enough of the people enough of the time.)
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To: docbnj
everyone will eventually be hit by this "death tax."

I won't. Poor and all that.

26 posted on 01/12/2009 6:22:02 AM PST by GUNGAGALUNGA
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To: docbnj

Yep, the key term is that it would fix the value PERMANENTLY. But on the bright side, 3.5 million is a heck of a lot better than the previous $600,000. We can look to eliminate it permanently in the future.


27 posted on 01/12/2009 6:35:23 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Obama is living proof that stupid people should not be allowed to vote.)
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To: DoughtyOne
I have never understood the reasoning for this tax.

The reasoning is that socialists want to eliminate the right of inheritance in order to eliminate the "rich".

28 posted on 01/12/2009 6:38:55 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Obama is living proof that stupid people should not be allowed to vote.)
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To: brytlea
Hmmm...a tax that’s really just good for attorneys and tax consultants? ;)

Don't forget insurance salesmen (cough, Warren Buffet, cough).

Since the tax has been about 50% since FDR, then headed towards 75% of the Kennedy family wealth should have been turned over to the government (Joe and Rose Kennedy and six of their nine kids have died). If they have kept the majority of it out of government's greedy hands, then they are using tricks they don't want all the "little people" like farmers and small businessmen to use.

29 posted on 01/12/2009 6:50:13 AM PST by KarlInOhio (On 9/11 Israel mourned with us while the Palestinians danced in the streets. Who should we support?)
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To: brytlea; Blood of Tyrants

I think your responses were fairly close to each other, so I’ll respond to you both. Do you think there is some ingredient in there, that sees long term U.S. Citizens punished for their inheritance? It’s as if the powers that be want to reduce the influence of long term citizens, as much as they possibly can.

If you take this multicultural vent we’re on right now, diversity and pumping up our differences, and trying to make us non-cohesive, it really seems to me there is much more to this than simple class envy.

It almost seems as if the natural born citizen is public enemy number one. It seems almost compulsive to destroy that which makes us strong.

If you watch as our manufacturing is moved off shore. You watch as our R&D follows this manufacturing. You watch as our scientific accomplishments are stifled, You watch as our space effort is given short shrift, our super collider cancelled, our major accomplishments termed international in scope. You watch as our long term citizens are stripped bare. You watch as foreign nationals are valued above the long term citizen. You watch as people from terrorist states are allowed to move here at will. You watch as we are occupied by a poor nation to the south, that saps off our wealth. At some point you have to take note that this all acts to one purpose.

The United States is being taken down by design.


30 posted on 01/12/2009 10:21:16 AM PST by DoughtyOne (I see that Kenya's favorite son has a new weekly Saturday morning radio show.)
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To: DoughtyOne

The aim is a totally socialistic society where there is no such thing as private property. Confiscation of wealth after death by eliminating the right of unheritance is part of the plan.


31 posted on 01/12/2009 10:35:35 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Obama is living proof that stupid people should not be allowed to vote.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

I agree that is part of it, no doubt.


32 posted on 01/12/2009 10:43:06 AM PST by DoughtyOne (I see that Kenya's favorite son has a new weekly Saturday morning radio show.)
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To: DoughtyOne
"The United States is being taken down by design."

Absolutely......almost! I would suggest one minor change to the statement.

"The United States is being has been taken down by design."

33 posted on 01/12/2009 11:53:39 AM PST by SuperLuminal
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To: docbnj

The Law of Unintended Consequences will have fatal results for many successful people in 2010. Let’s say you’re sick and old and don’t have much time to live. The logical thing to do is commit suicide before 2011 in order to preserve your estate for your beneficiaries. On the flip side, many beneficiaries will have a big incentive to murder their benefactors.

Funeral homes might be a good investment next year.


34 posted on 01/13/2009 9:46:20 AM PST by bukkdems (Jihad is a ruse that culls men, to smooth the way for Muslim polygamy.)
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To: KarlInOhio

Actually, I think it’s fairly simple to keep it out of their hands, if you are willing to go to a professional. My husband is in the business, and there are legal ways to avoid it. So, it’s a stupid tax in addition to being just wrong. But it makes the democrat voters feel good because they THINK they are socking it to those awful horrible rich people!


35 posted on 01/14/2009 1:15:48 PM PST by brytlea (You can fool enough of the people enough of the time.)
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To: DoughtyOne
Do you think there is some ingredient in there, that sees long term U.S. Citizens punished for their inheritance? It’s as if the powers that be want to reduce the influence of long term citizens, as much as they possibly can.

It's quite possible the congress critters want to show their constituents exactly that (the ones who hate the rich and hate non recent immigrants etc). However, it's difficult to believe they don't understand that the tax doesn't really do that. I wonder if they will change the laws to make it impossible to get out of? I'll have to ask my financial adviser about that one.

36 posted on 01/14/2009 1:18:37 PM PST by brytlea (You can fool enough of the people enough of the time.)
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To: bukkdems

They can gift at least some of the money and use trusts instead of something quite so draconian!


37 posted on 01/14/2009 1:21:07 PM PST by brytlea (You can fool enough of the people enough of the time.)
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To: brytlea

Right now there are living trusts or some such, but I don’t think everyone is savvy enough to set those up in time. I would hope they were. IMO, it’s probably a high priority to take the inheritances away from our citizens. The rich must pay and all.

I am so against this. It goes against everything I believe in with regard to this nation.


38 posted on 01/14/2009 11:44:38 PM PST by DoughtyOne (I see that Kenya's favorite son has a new weekly Saturday morning radio show.)
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To: DoughtyOne

I’m with you there.


39 posted on 01/15/2009 6:07:54 AM PST by brytlea (You can fool enough of the people enough of the time.)
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To: brytlea

Thank you.


40 posted on 01/15/2009 9:05:55 AM PST by DoughtyOne (I see that Kenya's favorite son has a new weekly Saturday morning radio show.)
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