100% Estate Tax

[notthecheatr]

Can anyone give me a good argument against this? I'm not an expert on economics or politics, and it seems like such a good idea I'm sure there must be something wrong with it.

So tell me, why shouldn't we have a 100% estate tax? It would make everyone work for their wealth, rather than being lazy and leeching off their families. We wouldn't have politicians who have wealth that they didn't work a day for, wielding power with no experience to make their decisions just or fair. 100% estate tax would pay our government debts, improve society in every aspect (if the money is used correctly), and reduce corruption by a great deal. Why not?

[Dan74]

Class warfare! Get out you communist!

[minorwork]

Can anyone give me a good argument against this? I'm not an expert on economics or politics, and it seems like such a good idea I'm sure there must be something wrong with it.

So tell me, why shouldn't we have a 100% estate tax? It would make everyone work for their wealth, rather than being lazy and leeching off their families. We wouldn't have politicians who have wealth that they didn't work a day for, wielding power with no experience to make their decisions just or fair. 100% estate tax would pay our government debts, improve society in every aspect (if the money is used correctly), and reduce corruption by a great deal. Why not?

Indeed. Don't have kids or marry. Hell, even if you do have a disabled wife with MS that your working has given a caretaker a job and provided a house and life's essentials for her, if you get killed coming home, it should go to the state and your wife kicked to the street. Screw your wife, you're dead. All you had was the house, an income, a lunch bucket and a car. Yeah, your wife would be better off dead too.

Scrimping and saving you and your wife have enough money to buy some land and build a house and now you have a family. You and your wife build a few houses and sell them and buy a farm that the children, you, and the wife raise crops and some livestock to supplement your day job. In the ensuing years the price of the land has risen to ten times the value of your purchase price due to inflation and you've been paying taxes on the land and the output of the farm for nigh 45 years. Now you die and there is no where near ten times the valuation of the farm in cash for the rest of your family to proceed with their lifestyle and function.

So 100% estate tax is based on what value? What was initially paid? Present value? If present value then the farmer's family now must be thrown out of their house and into the street. (Did you know that farmers buy retail and sell wholesale?) And this is the reality not just of a 100% sales tax but of anything over $1 million like it almost was. OR they can become slave workers for the new owners of the properties, the STATE. The work may not be on the farm though. It may be processing paper work required by regulatory agencies before getting a script for Vicodin from a doctor. Real useful, fulfilling work.

Good idea. Surely will generate those paper processing jobs. Good government jobs that produce... ...jobs to handle paper requisitions.

[Shade]

Theft is immoral.

[ironeagle]

OK so you suggest the government not have to work for anything by taking 100% of THE HARD WORK EARNINGS OF A MOTHER OR FATHER AND STEALING IT AWAY FROM THEIR CHILDREN SO "HARD WORKERS" LIKE YOU CAN HAVE uhc PAID FOR THEM. i DON'T THINK SO IT'S A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS. tHE KIDS OF THIS COUNTRY HAVE GONE MAD AND LOST THEIR SENSES.

[Nono]

Why not?

I see no reason why not. As for minorwork's example of the wife being left on the street, you can adopt the laws necessary to make it her estate too.

The point is to avoid having wealth handed from generation to generation, which makes a meritocracy impossible.

[Nono]

Theft is immoral.

Shade ol' son, none of it really belongs to any of us. You can't take it with you. It isn't really yours.

[Grogybear]

I see no reason why not. As for minorwork's example of the wife being left on the street, you can adopt the laws necessary to make it her estate too.

The point is to avoid having wealth handed from generation to generation, which makes a meritocracy impossible.

Could this not be circumvented by, for example, selling everything you own to your child for a nominal amount before you die?

[Trojan_Ripper]

Could this not be circumvented by, for example, selling everything you own to your child for a nominal amount before you die?

Yes it can be circumvented. It’s called insurance and trusts.

[Nono]

I imagine there are fiscal means of circumventing the circumvention.

Anyway, a good, healthy, progressive income tax devoid of bullshit loopholes wouldn't go amiss for starters.

[minorwork]

Could this not be circumvented by, for example, selling everything you own to your child for a nominal amount before you die?

There be laws against closely held transfers at below market value. Gifting is limited too. Medicaid will take everything if that wasn't tranferred 3 years before the death and new laws will make it 5.

I imagine there are fiscal means of circumventing the circumvention.

Anyway, a good, healthy, progressive income tax devoid of bullshit loopholes wouldn't go amiss for starters.

No loopholes? You think this is Sweden? Single, married, kids or not, all taxed the same.

[Nono]

That's what I think is so cool about creative taxation ---- you can encourage people to Do the Right Thing. For example, with fewer jobs around you could reward people for enlarging their households (and thereby allowing someone to leave the labour market) while discouraging couples with big incomes living all alone in big houses and driving two cars.

Or whatever.