Death Panels and the Estate Tax

The Tax Policy Center ^ | August 14th | Howard Gleckman

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

I’ve been struggling to understand the overheated rhetoric surrounding the proposal that allows Medicare to pay for end-of-life counseling. I think I get it now: It is all about the death tax.

Here is the story the government doesn’t want you to know. The 2001 Bush tax cuts will repeal the estate tax next year, but only for a year. Starting in less than 18 months, estates in excess of $1 million will once again be taxed at a stiff 55 percent. This will cost the children of the very wealthy tens of billions of not-so-hard-earned dollars. And it creates a huge incentive for these offspring to, shall we say, accelerate nature’s course. You see where I'm going here.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Now here's one I haven't heard many people talk about.

Talk about putting two and two together! This is hugely insidious.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

healthcare ping

[the invisib1e hand]

Now here's one I haven't heard many people talk about. Talk about putting two and two together! This is hugely insidious.

maybe 'cause it's so obvious? And hugh.

[Smokin' Joe]

Starting in less than 18 months, estates in excess of $1 million will once again be taxed at a stiff 55 percent. This will cost the children of the very wealthy tens of billions of not-so-hard-earned dollars.

Out here a wheat farm and the equipment to farm it effectively will often run (land, equipment, and other physical assets, not cash) over $1,000,000 in value. Without the economy of scale, the farm won't make money.

If the farm gets split up between the government and the heirs, it will cease to exist as a family farm. Ditto with ranches, or any family business which is successful and ties up a great deal of its value in equipment or real estate.

More war on the middle class, taking the means of production to reduce us all to serfs.

[GeronL]

yikes.

and I thought I was nuts when I wrote my post today

http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com/2009/08/toward-totus-state.html

[Gaffer]

I mentioned the same thing on a thread a while back. It was easy if you remember a couple of simple tenets about liberals: they crave power and control. To accomplish this they need money, pure and simple. In the end, nothing they do isn’t connected to getting their greedy paws on more of our money.

[bjorn14]

Always, always follow the money

[browniexyz]

So, in other words, after 2011, the government has a huge interest in dead senior citizens—not just their ability to vote, either!!!! But an actual cash interest, kind of like the poverty-stricken English monarchy claiming church property for its own!

[gov_bean_ counter]

Posted to the Not Rush Thread Tuesday...
Freepers are always ahead of the analytical curve

To: Enterprise
Death panels = quicker access to death taxes...
Dems really are the party of death.

91 posted on 08/18/2009 9:39:11 AM PDT by gov_bean_ counter (Barak Obama: Proud Graduate of the Robert Mugabe School of Government and Economics)

[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

[Ann Archy]

A war between young and old.....fat and thin.....employed and unemployed......legal and illegal......black and white.....etc., etc. America will be a WAR ZONE.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Great minds. :-)

[gov_bean_ counter]

No doubt.

Just wait, Rush will co-opt this as his analysis next week...

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

I certainly hope Limbaugh helps spread this around!

And I care not, he can take full credit for it if he likes.

I’m surprised he hasn’t thought about it already. Maybe he has, but just hasn’t said anything yet. Or you missed that segment, who knows.

Oh well.

What matters to me most is probably helping to educate fellow conservatives with new ideas, concepts, and facts. And defeating the lib media.

[Just mythoughts]

There are far more old grandmas on social security than there are old grandmas out there hovering over million dollar plus estates. ‘End of life’ care for old grandmas after a 5 year period sure would help them fix social security.

That is not to say that I discount them coveting after Americans estates and staying up all night drawing up the paperwork to get their grubby hands on whatever they can.

Some ‘god’ they have partnered up with?

[Pearls Before Swine]

The rumor used to be that Obama was going to ask for a 3.5 Million dollar estate exemption once the Bush phase-up reverted to the old 1 million dollar limit, which is ridiculously low. We’ll see.....

[SES1066]

Not so fast Kimosabe, our esteemed (in some quarters) President has already set plans in motion to 'fix' this problem in the budget. I don't think that this has actually come to a final and binding vote yet, but since January, Obama has been working to kill the '0%' 2010 Estate Tax. The last reference to it that quotes specific figures is from April this year and has a 45% rate on everything above $3.5 million ($7 million MFJ).

Gee Wiz, just makes it hard to figure out when to die, right? No wonder Obama wants to 'help' us. After all we now have another 2 trillion dollar DEFICIT (not debt which is far bigger) to pay over the next 10 years!

[NavySEAL F-16]

Another reason why the Health Care plan doesn’t go into effect until 2013, and all the fallout occurs after the 2012 election.

[Blu By U]

I've been thinking of this as well. I imagined the ‘redistribution of wealth’ affects upon the middle class. For example: the little -white- widow would be visited by government agents to survey her assets. They could trick her into signing end of life statements. The next time she shows up sick, a death panel would consider her worth. They would deny care and cause her to die early. After she's dead, government liens and confiscates the property for a group like Black Farmers USA.

[Tunehead54]

When the passed the estate tax cut I thought that (starting at 55%) it would be reduced every year until it hit zero in 2010? and then expire - unless extended and return to 55%.

Yet I too saw that 45% figure recently ... maybe the taxable estate "minimum" was being raised and will go back down to 1M?

[1FreeAmerican]

See my post #8 - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2316458/posts