Free Republic

An initiative passed narrowly by voters in 2020 to protect wildfire victims and seniors has opened the door to massive tax increases that threaten tenants and the roof over their heads. Proposition 19 removed important taxpayer protections from the state constitution that for 35 years guaranteed that parents or grandparents could transfer property to their kids without any change to the property tax bill. The removal of these protections has brought back the death tax to California. Now, when property is passed from parent to child, it is reassessed to current market value, triggering a huge increase in annual property...

Does second-to-die insurance create a tax bonanza? Not exactly. “I’m thinking about a second-to-die policy that would pay off after my wife and I are both gone. “Here's some proposals the agent came up with, based on gifting premium dollars to a trust owned by the two boys. I need to work through all the tax wrinkles, but ultimately it’s a series of bets, most importantly that we both die after one premium and the boys stick it to the insurance company for the full death benefit. After that the payoff diminishes in magnitude. “Would love to hear your thoughts...

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.

As a former assistant chief of police and founder of a company that provides security services, I thought I knew much about the business of protecting people. But career politicians in Washington are giving all of us a masterclass in how to safeguard the interests of ultra-wealthy and powerful people like themselves through a multi pronged expansion of the death tax. If passed, the effort would destroy American jobs, eliminate incentives for small and family-owned businesses to grow, as well as further cement the status of society's most elite echelon. The provisions of concern – a reduction in the federal...

On the campaign trail Biden was asked if he would raise tax on small businesses On February 20, 2020 he said: 'No. Taxes on small businesses won't go up' Next week House Democrats will vote on the framework for the tax hikes Biden wants to raise the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6 pc, from 37pc Americans For Tax Reform calculate 1.9 million small businesses will be affected Furthermore, Biden plans to remove a 'step up' in basis on inherited property The rule means the person who inherits the property can sell it immediately without paying any capital gains...

Under Biden's change, heirs would be forced to pay taxes on the appreciation of assets, potentially over the entire lifetime of the recently deceased relative. President Joe Biden has proposed amending the inheritance tax, also known as the “death tax,” but farmers around the country are raising concerns about the plan. In the American Families Plan introduced earlier this year, Biden proposed repealing the “step-up in basis” in tax law. The stepped-up basis is a tax provision that allows an heir to report the value of an asset at the time of inheriting it, essentially not paying gains taxes on...

... President Joe Biden has proposed tax changes in order to pay for the American Families Plan, which provides government benefits and tax breaks for middle- and lower-income people. Small-business owners are most concerned about increased taxes on capital gains — profits on the sale of assets — and on inherited wealth. Mr. Biden’s plan calls for nearly doubling the top tax rate on capital gains and eliminating a significant tax benefit on appreciated assets known as the “step-up in basis.” The combined tax rate increase could add up to 61% on inherited wealth. For example, if someone dies after...

President Biden has promised not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 but plans to end an inheritance loophole could do just that, according to a new analysis that suggests a widow with nothing to pass on to her children but her home could be badly hit by proposals that would leave the Bidens' personal fortune untouched. Tucked away in Biden's American Families Plan is a revision to the way capital gains taxes are paid on estates when people die. Critics have dubbed it a 'middle-class death tax' and say it will mean thousands of people having to...

Death has sadly been on the minds of many Americans this past year. Hundreds of thousands have been lost in the U.S. alone to coronavirus, including many more across the globe. This time has been unimaginably difficult for so many who have lost loved ones. Unfortunately, as the pandemic winds down, the Biden administration is proposing a tax hike that would make sure Americans are taxed twice in the event of a death in the family. So, while people may only die once, their family or loved ones would have to pay twice. Given the way this tax hike is...

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...

Several Senate Democrats are pushing to boost federal revenue by taxing certain capital gains that are passed down after death. Traditionally, unrealized capital gains have not been taxed, allowing wealthy individuals to transfer stocks, bonds and real estate investments to their children and grandchildren without the recipients being taxed. Under current law, heirs don’t have to pay tax on the capital gains that were accrued by an asset or investment before they received it. They only have to pay capital gains taxes on an inherited asset after they sell it, and they only have to do so for the amount...

Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) spoke at the final day of Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit Sunday and criticized unnamed leaders across the country for embracing a feelings-based governing approach. The South Dakota governor gave the crowd of young women a little background on her initial entry into the political sphere. She took over her family’s farm after her father passed away, but about a month after his untimely death, she received a letter from the IRS, notifying her of owed “death taxes.” “It was devastating for us,” she told the crowd. “You can imagine as farmers you have...

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...

Chalk another one up for big government progressivism. I recently posted about progressive republicans and the 16th amendment, having learned during that research that this was the case: I did not know previously that TR supported the death tax. Here is what he said in 1906: As a matter of personal conviction, and without pretending to discuss the details or formulate the system, I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes, beyond a certain amount, either given in life or devised or bequeathed upon...

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...

IRS data show the average income of taxpayers leaving Illinois surpassed the average income of taxpayers entering the state by $20,000 in 2014, a record loss for Illinois in the wake of the 2011 income-tax hike. Politicians enacted Illinois’ 2011 income-tax hike during a late-night legislative session in January 2011 and raised the state’s personal income-tax rate to 5 percent from 3 percent. This 67 percent income-tax hike lasted for four years, during which time Illinois experienced record wealth flight. IRS data reveal what happens when politicians choose short-term tax revenue gains over long-term stability. The short-term increase in tax...

Three brackets, all higher than the current 45 percent We’ve discussed the death tax a fair amount around here, and for better or for worse it usually breaks down to two arguments. Defenders of the tax say there’s no reason the children of rich people should feel entitled to get all their parents’ money, since they themselves did nothing to earn it. Critics of the tax respond by saying that if the parent earned the money, then it should be the parents’ decision who gets it, and at any rate there’s no particular reason the government should have a claim...

Rules and more rules The Constitution says you can’t pass laws or levy taxes without congressional approval. Barack Obama does not see the Constitution as a limit to respect. He sees it as a target to be destroyed, and his directive to the administrative state is to find a way. Find a way to govern as we want, without having to bother with Congress. Do it via regulatory and administrative rulemaking if that’s what it takes. But do it.