Posted on 11/18/2012 6:59:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Is it "fair" that the federal government be able to take more than half the wealth created by estates of more than $3.5 million at the time of death?
Of course it is, says the left - even if 97% of farmers and ranchers will be impacted.
Fox News:
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Two decades ago, Kester paid the IRS $2 million when he inherited a 22,000-acre cattle ranch from his grandfather. Come January, the tax burden on his children will be more than $13 million.
For supporters of a high estate tax, which is imposed on somebody's estate after death, Kester is the kind of person they rarely mention. He doesn't own a mansion. He's not the CEO of a multi-national. But because of his line of work, he owns a lot of property that would be subject to a lot of tax.
"Our number one goal is to repeal the estate tax, to get rid of it, not have it for every generation, when I die and my kids die and so on," he told Fox News. "For everyone to have to re-purchase the ranch or farm over and over for each generation, that's inherently unjust. So what we're doing is asking our politicians to understand that and repeal the estate tax."
That, however, is unlikely. Currently, the federal government taxes estates worth $5 million dollars and up at 35 percent. When the Bush-era tax rates expire in January, rates increase to 55 percent on estates of $1 million or more. While some Republicans want to eliminate the death tax entirely, President Obama has proposed a 45 percent rate on estates of $3.5 million and up.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Distribute shares of the Corporation to the heirs while you are alive.
In response to a couple of your points.....
1) Very few pay the estate tax. They manage around it with charitable gifts they still control and trusts.
However, many more spent thousands of dollars in legal and/or accounting fees and hours and hours of time to avoid it. Time and money that could be invested on the business goes to successfully defeat the government. The only “winners” are the lawyers and accountants.
2) Eliminating the estate tax does not eliminate tax, it merely changes when and how it is paid. If property does not get a “stepped up basis” in the estate, it retains the purchase cost and there is gain when the inherited items are sold.
My family has held many of the same assets for well over 100 years. And if assets were sold usually the capital gains tax is less than the estate tax.
Most rich people got rich by working hard and being smart. They are smart enough to realize that the kids should make their way on their own with just a little help from mom and dad. To do this, there is an informal network where "I'll hire your kid, if you hire my kid." The kids don't work for their parents, have a real boss, have to make it on their own or they are fired, but they do get their foot in the door first along with invaluable experience.
Expanding this concept to your idea would mean "my kid will marry your aged grand dad, if your kid will marry my aged grand dad. All perfectly legal.
The left loves to take farmers’ land.
Which is why it will never go away.
A confiscatory inheritance tax is also Plank #3 of the Communist Manifesto, so there's that as well.
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It already is. Property tax is rent. Try not paying it and see who "owns" the house/property.
FMCDH(BITS)
I was thinking about this today-
If Congress was able to simply “exempt themselves” from the new Healthcare laws with barely a peep from the MSM, couldn’t they do the same thing with THIS tax and many others?
Perhaps they already have. It would not surprise me to find they are exempt from all taxes, or have special loopholes for their personal situations.
There is no acceptable reason for a death tax, indeed, I was insulted when I heard some lame academic say we don’t want a lot of wealth created and passed along to future generations...
Says who....this clown doesn’t speak for me or millions of other Americans who would be proud to make enough in their life times so that their future children and grand children don’t have to work 40-60 hours a week for 40 years......let them enjoy life, not work....turn them loose to dream and get us to where we should be in science and technology.....
Why are we still driving cars that run on tires and gas....we should be driving hover craft run on renewables....
I am and will always be against the government STEALING money from us when we die....
NO DEATH TAXES....EVER
I saw that video....what could he have against Paris Hilton....looks like she’s worth every cent
Hey buddy, it will not just effect those you choose....and just who do you think you are to choose....sounds like wealth envy to me....
Is that annually?
Yes, per year. If you give above that is starts counting against your estate’s final exemption from the tax. I don’t know what forms you have to fill out if you give more than your total exemption while still alive or what happens to people who are below the current exemption but above the new one if it drops back to its old level in 2013.
So, with four or five kids, it would take some planning to hang on to the farm, and some agreements up front to keep it together.
A key element in the socialists' wealth redistribution scheming.
Funny. I was just thinking the same weird thought. Use the governments own laws against them. Perhaps something like the idea of an intergenerational line marriage as written in Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". After all, if gay marriage is "normal" what's to limit any combination as defining a marriage?
Re: YOUR LAST SENTENCE:
that’s the way Anna Nicole Smith hoped to do it.
The smart rich don’t pay these taxes. Blind trusts and other instruments keep that from happening. This is all about the Democrap party’s Communist goal and one of them is attacking the rich out of petty and childish jealousy.
You should qualify your comments. People should fear and be repulsed by power and wealth concentrated in government, or via government connections.
If you fear wealth concentration (accumulation) in private hands that is a result of honest hard work, accomplished strictly in the free-enterprise system, then you are brainwashed by the evil left.
“If property does not get a “stepped up basis” in the estate, it retains the purchase cost and there is gain when the inherited items are sold.”
That’s the dirty secret about the elimination of “death tax”.
By eliminating the stepped up basis, the middle class becomes taxes on inherited property.
Say a guy worked for Chevron for thirty-five years, accumulated a thousand shares of CVX in a taxable account. Say his cost basis is $20/share and the stock is now worth $100/share: market value would be $100k and cost basis would be $20k. Say the value of his house, bank accounts, and retirement accounts plus the $100k in CVX stock totalled $500k when he died. Under the old law, his estate would not be taxable at all. His heirs would receive the stock with a stepped-up basis of $100/share. If they were to sell the stock, no capital gains tax would be due. With the elimination of the “death tax”, though, his heirs receive the stock with a cost basis of $20/share. When they sell the stock, they get to pay capital gains tax on $80,000. They also get to experience the joy of figuring out what their cost basis is.
Not one in hundred people advocating for the elimination of the “death tax” knows that it probably will increase the taxes paid on the property they leave to their heirs. Only the exceptionally well-off benefit from the proposals under consideration.
I don’t much care about concentration of wealth: I’d prefer no death tax and no capital gain tax. But nobody is proposing that, and what they are proposing will increase capital gains taxes paid by the middle class.
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