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Recently we learned that the Biden syndicate created a network of 20 or more limited liability corporations (LLCs) for the purpose of obscuring the transfer of money “earned” by the sale of Joe Biden’s influence as vice president of the United States. Although our “Justice Department” hasn’t figured it out yet, the rest of the country is starting to realize that massive criminality has taken place. At the very least, several felonious violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) have probably been committed by Hunter — and by his father. Let’s not forget that it was Joe, not Hunter,...

Elon Musk has made it clear he's against a wealth tax on the richest Americans that could leave him with an annual tax bill in the billions. But he thinks taxing inheritances is a good idea. "Generally, I think the estate tax is a good tax," the Tesla CEO said at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit in response to a question about how billionaires should be taxed.

This week, President Biden proposed taxing capital gains at death at a tax rate of 39.6 percent plus the 3.8 percent investment tax. He proposed a $1 million exemption. For an individual with less than $11.8 million in net worth, this would create a new death tax from whole cloth. President Biden’s new death tax would result in estates that currently are not remotely close to having sufficient net worth to pay a death tax paying a death tax. It can be named a ‘capital gains tax at death’; it is a new death tax. For a long-term real estate...

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently introduced an estate tax plan that specifically lists the wealthiest Americans amid a large push by the Biden administration for tax hikes largely affecting corporations and high-income Americans. "The fairest way to reduce wealth inequality, invest in the disappearing middle class, and preserve our democracy is to enact a progressive estate tax on the inherited wealth of multi-millionaires and billionaires," the proposal stated. The “For the 99.5% Act” from Sanders would raise $430 billion over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, and would only affect the top 0.5% of...

While death and some taxes may be certain, US state-level estate taxes can be avoided by moving to one of the 36 states that do not collect them. Some very wealthy individuals do just that. In Taxing Billionaires: Estate Taxes and the Geographical Location of the Ultra-Wealthy (NBER Working Paper 26387), Enrico Moretti and Daniel J. Wilson attempt to quantify how state estate taxes affect the residential choices of the very rich, and to estimate whether, when states increase their estate tax rates, the increased revenues collected from those who remain in the state exceed the revenues lost as some...

The federal estate tax boils people’s blood on both sides of the aisle, but often for the wrong reasons. Democrats argue that the rich shouldn’t be able to create family dynasties by concentrating wealth. Republicans argue that the estate tax generates less than 1 percent of federal revenues and so might as well be abolished. Neither of these arguments gets to the heart of why the estate tax is so dangerous. What Democrats miss is that the rich have available to them all sorts of accounting and legal tools to avoid, or at least mitigate, their tax bills. Lowering the...

Family-owned business across the country have extra reason to celebrate this Christmas season. President Trump will soon sign the GOP tax bill, which doubles the estate, gift, generation-skipping tax exemptions, effective Jan. 1, 2018. This change marks significant progress in the fight to eliminate the unfair and hated "death tax" from the code entirely. The death tax has been a killer for family businesses, destroying roughly $1.1 trillion in capital stock in the economy since its inception, according to a report by the Joint Economic Committee. Less capital stock means fewer jobs, lower wages for workers, and slower economic growth...

My father built a small business from scratch with years of sweat equity and many weeks and months away from home. He employed about 100 people, and by the end of his working years, the business was highly successful. He became a millionaire. He lived the American dream. He sold a product that people wanted, provided a solid income for many families and gave lots of money to our church and numerous other charities. And every year he paid his taxes. Over the course of his lifetime, he paid millions of dollars in income taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, property...

There is probably no better illustration of the scam President Trump’s tax plan would perpetrate on working- and middle-class people than its provision repealing the estate tax. Getting rid of it would benefit a tiny slice of high earners and their families — including Trump’s family, who could save as much as $1 billion once Trump moves on to delivering an accounting for his life to his maker. Yet Trump has absurdly sold estate-tax repeal as a huge boon to “millions” of small businesses and even to “the American farmer.”

Want proof taxes can actually go down? In the last three years, nine states have eliminated or lowered their estate taxes, mostly by raising exemptions. And more reductions are coming. Minnesota lawmakers recently raised the state’s estate-tax exemption to $2.1 million retroactive to January, and the exemption will rise to $2.4 million next year. Maryland will raise its $3 million exemption to $4 million next year. New Jersey’s exemption, which used to rank last at $675,000 per person, rose to $2 million per person this year. Next year New Jersey is scheduled to eliminate its estate tax altogether, joining about...

And more! We told you yesterday about the Trump plan to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, and to make a similar move on the repatriated profits tax. Later in the day, more detailed emerged about Trump’s larger tax proposal. Via CNBC, here are the high points: Trump’s plan will cut the number of income tax brackets from seven to three, with a top rate of 35 percent and lower rates of 25 percent and 10 percent. It is not clear what income ranges will fall under those brackets. It would also double the standard...

Link only: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-13/christie-pans-democratic-proposal-to-double-new-jersey-gas-tax

It appears that the pop star Prince may have died without a will, leaving behind a multi-million dollar and growing estate. Although Prince has one full sister and five half-siblings, Prince’s family members will not be his biggest heirs. Both the federal government and Minnesota’s state government will assess so-called “death taxes” or estate taxes on Prince’s assets, taking away more than half his estate. Between his physical assets— cash, investments, home, etc.—and his future royalties, Prince’s estate has been estimated to be between $300 and $500 million. If Prince were married, he could have passed on the entirety of...

New Jersey's wealthiest man may be making a common Northeast move: a relocation to the tax-friendly state of Florida, a report says. According to Bloomberg, David Tepper has shifted the base of his Appaloosa Management to the Sunshine State as of Jan. 1 after registering to vote and declaring citizenship in Miami at the end of 2015. Taxes were reportedly an important part of the 58-year-old's decision, but also, quality-of-life played big part in his choice to move, according to the article. Tepper has been a resident of the Garden State for more than two decades and has continually appeared...

Sometimes, at a most solemn moment, a most irreverent thought shoots through the mind. When I heard that the US Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, my thought was "I wonder what the estate tax lawyers will make of it?" How about advising a terminally ill widowed grandma to marry her much-beloved granddaughter at the deathbed? Won't the estate pass to the surviving spouse intact? I'm not a lawyer, but I think it will -- without IRS getting the bite out of it as would happen now. And it would be very hard to have a sound legal argument against such...

Republican leaders have been scolded for not doing more in their first 100 days in charge of Congress, but one victory deserves applause: the House's 240-179 vote Thursday to kill the hated and unfair death tax. We'll see if economic common sense prevails in the Senate to get the required 60 votes or if the redistributionists who run the Democratic Party in Washington derail this tax reform. President Obama, class warrior in chief, has already vowed to veto any repeal of the estate tax. That's a shame, but it's still worth it to send a repeal bill to his desk....

The stated mission of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute is to teach the general public about how the U.S. Senate works, so it’s fitting that the shrine to the late Massachusetts Democrat is funded, in part, by $38 million in taxpayers’ money. The $78 million combination museum and interactive civics exhibit was formally dedicated by President Obama on Monday. Besides a section honoring Kennedy’s 46-year political career, which ended with his Aug. 25, 2009 death, the Institute will offer a “Senate Immersion Module” which aims to teach visitors how the upper chamber works. (snip) On top of an $18.9 million...

Let's assume George and Ethel, two teachers, purchased their Southern California home in 1966 for $45,000. Lets also assume that over the next fifty years, the value of the house increased to $1,345,000. Let's also assume that George and Ethel had four children and each of them went to a private four year college and that George and Ethel continued to re-finance their home to put their children through college and take a few cruises. Today, there is a $1,145,000 loan on the house. With pensions and other savings, the now retired teachers manage to pay their mortgage and live...

Bill and Hillary Clinton are using perfectly legal, but complex and expensive legal strategies available only to the rich in order to avoid the estate taxes they have assured us are essential to fairness and economic justice. So much for the crusade against the 1% who are supposedly responsible for all the ills of everyone else.  Keeping Chelsea a wealthy member of the 1% is the apparent goal.Richard Rubin of Bloomberg reports: Bill and Hillary Clinton have long supported an estate tax to prevent the U.S. from being dominated by inherited wealth. That doesn’t mean they want to pay it. To reduce...