Obama's Death Tax

[amicus]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123846422014872229.html

What all this means is that the higher the estate tax, the lower the incentive to reinvest in family businesses. Former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin recently used the Summers study as a springboard to compare the economic cost of a 45% estate tax versus a zero rate. He finds that the long-term impact of eliminating the death tax would be to increase small business capital investment by $1.6 trillion. This additional investment would create 1.5 million new jobs.

In other words, by raising the estate tax in the name of fairness, Mr. Obama won't merely bring back from the dead one of the most despised of all federal taxes, and not merely splinter many family-owned enterprises. He will also forfeit half the jobs he hopes to gain from his $787 billion stimulus bill. Maybe that's why the news of this unwise tax increase was hidden in a footnote.

~~~

With the passage of time, a million dollars is not what it used to be.

Examples of family fishing businesses in the devastated Gult of Mexico, stand to be destroyed by the 55% Death Tax that was supposed to go to zero.

Keep taxing the so called wealthy, those families that have accumulated assets over the years, and Obama will destroy even more family farms and businesses all across the nation.

Vote Nobama in November.

Amicus

 

[Boxlicker101]

I really don't like the idea of an inheritance tax on family owned businesses and farms, because it may well require selling them to pay it, thereby eliminating jobs.

At the same time, it does "level the playing field" and redistribute wealth, two goals of the current Socialistic administration. Maybe they could have the death tax, but have it only apply to cash and securities and not to family owned real estate and businesses.

 

[amicus]

I get a frustrated feeling when people advocate the redistribution of wealth. I wonder would anyone care to explain and justify that procedure?

Thank you.

Amicus

 

[Boxlicker101]

I get a frustrated feeling when people advocate the redistribution of wealth. I wonder would anyone care to explain and justify that procedure?

Thank you.

Amicus

I don't like it either. It is a highly Socialistic concept, and the only thing it would ever be is a disencentive to work hard and succeed. I mean, why should I bust my ass and try to do the best job I can when my coworkers are goofing off and getting paid as much as I am? Why should I invent a new device that will improve mankind and make me rich when that just means I will need to turn over all my new wealth to the government to be distributed to those who have not earned it?

Most inventions came about because the inventors saw needs and ways to make themselves rich. Would Bell, for instance, have invented the telephone if he knew the profits he would make from it would largely go to taxes? Would the Wright Brothers have gone to all the hard work to invent airplanes if they knew the profits they would make would be taxed at a confiscatory level?

 

[amicus]

I am in complete agreement with you. Guess I will wait and see if anyone cares to defend the concept.

Thank you and regards...

Amicus

 

[Carnevil9]

The first thing to remember is that taxes are NOT levied for the benefit of those being taxed. They are levied for the benefit of those doing the taxing. So you can't whine about taxes not doing you any good. That's not their purpose.

The second thing to remember is that taxes are decidedly NOT about raising revenues for the government. At least, not primarily. They are primarily about MANIPULATING BEHAVIOR. If taxes were simply to raise revenue, our tax code would be one page long. But given the reams and reams of regulations and loopholes and exceptions and complications, it is clear that the primary purpose of taxes are for the Feds to coerce taxpayers into exhibiting a very specific set of behaviors.

I don't know if that answers any of the questions raised in this thread, but hopefully it helps to clarify the issues. And illustrate Obama's true agenda.......Carney

 

[Loring2]

Yeah Ami

I am in complete agreement with you. Guess I will wait and see if anyone cares to defend the concept.

Thank you and regards...

Amicus

I disagree and quite vociforously too. Most discovery isn't a result of the desire for fame and/or wealth; it's the product of serendipty. Need and curiousity meeting in the boudoir of chance to produce a child developed by others.

I think must worthwhile things are found by a single curious mind and nurtured by the love of those who see its beauty.

Represson come later when a government comes to claim the child as its own; since the government itself is of necessity,barren.

 

[TE999]

While we're on the subject of taxation, has anyone seen this little gem?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/gold-coin-dealers-decry-tax-law/story?id=11211611

No wonder we needed to pass health care legislation and read it later.

I wonder how many other scorpions are in this woodpile?

 

[Huckleman2000]

While we're on the subject of taxation, has anyone seen this little gem?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/gold-coin-dealers-decry-tax-law/story?id=11211611

No wonder we needed to pass health care legislation and read it later.

I wonder how many other scorpions are in this woodpile?

LOL - sounds like coin investors have been illegally avoiding capital gains taxes, and the industry that grew up around that practice is getting slapped.

This closes a tax dodge, and helps shrink the deficit! You law-and-order deficit-hawks should be all over this - the government is enforcing it's tax laws and only those who break the law should be concerned, right?

 

[Songcatcher]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e-F7AlKBgE&feature=player_embedded

 

[Liar]

Vote Nobama in November.

In what state or district is this Nobama running? Is it his or her first or last name?

I'm glad I'm not American. It seems you never have anything to vote for, only things to vote against.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

HUCKLEBERRY

Close the deficit? You obviously do not read the news. We wont turn the corner on deficit reduction until the Democrats borrow and steal every fucking nickle on Planet Earth. When there is nuthin else to beg, borrow, and steal we'll do something.

 

[Huckleman2000]

[...]When there is nuthin else to beg, borrow, and steal we'll do something.

Well, until that time comes when you actually decide to "do something", can you at least shut up?

 

[xssve]

I really don't like the idea of an inheritance tax on family owned businesses and farms, because it may well require selling them to pay it, thereby eliminating jobs.

At the same time, it does "level the playing field" and redistribute wealth, two goals of the current Socialistic administration. Maybe they could have the death tax, but have it only apply to cash and securities and not to family owned real estate and businesses.

That's propaganda, first, it doesn't tax dead people, it taxes live people receiving windfall profits they didn't earn, second, it typically only applies to inherited cash, for which the cutoff will end up being around 1 Mil.

i.e., if you inherit the family farm, the inheritance tax doesn't' apply unless you sell it for cash within a certain amount of time (after which, profits from sale of assets are taxable as capital gains) - the assets, land, equipment, etc., are not taxable any more than they are when you own them.

i.e., if you keep the family business going, you should not be exposed to any significant tax liability, the people who don't like this, and fund all the propaganda about "Death Taxes" are the old money trust funds and foundations, with large amounts of cash, and I mean, large like Tens and Hundreds of millions, and that's why they're trust funds and foundations to begin with.

 

[Dragonlipz]

Pretty much a circle jerk and cluster fuck goin down here..........

 

[Boxlicker101]

That's propaganda, first, it doesn't tax dead people, it taxes live people receiving windfall profits they didn't earn, second, it typically only applies to inherited cash, for which the cutoff will end up being around 1 Mil.

i.e., if you inherit the family farm, the inheritance tax doesn't' apply unless you sell it for cash within a certain amount of time (after which, profits from sale of assets are taxable as capital gains) - the assets, land, equipment, etc., are not taxable any more than they are when you own them.

i.e., if you keep the family business going, you should not be exposed to any significant tax liability, the people who don't like this, and fund all the propaganda about "Death Taxes" are the old money trust funds and foundations, with large amounts of cash, and I mean, large like Tens and Hundreds of millions, and that's why they're trust funds and foundations to begin with.

The tax is on part of the accumulated wealth of a person after that person dies, so death tax is not that far off. Sometimes it is called a death duty, which is a synonym of death tax.

Are you sure it only applies to cash and similar assets? Everything I have been able to find says differently. http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/personal-income-taxes/inheritance-tax.htm/printable Of course, we are talking of an essentially new tax here, so it may be only on liquid assets and not business of farm property.

 

[4glory6]

Excuse me. All the way back to that there thread slug, please. What makes this Obama's death tax (other than Amicus' shell gaming)? Isn't this just a failure to renew a ten-year-limited-term law? Isn't this, in fact, someone else's inheritance tax structure from some previous administration that the Bush administration could have made permanent rather than temporary and didn't?

As usual, isn't Amicus just pulling this out his reactionary ass--with the rest of you knee-jerk reactionaries piling on the bandwagon of misrepresentation?

Have to lie to find objections to the Obama administration, don't you?

No need to answer. I already know the answer.

 

[amicus]

Many economists had previously believed in "the life-cycle theory" of savings, which postulates that workers are motivated to save with a goal of spending it down to zero in retirement. Mr. Summers and coauthor Laurence Kotlikoff showed that patterns of savings don't validate that model; they found that between 41% and 66% of capital stock was transferred either by bequests at death or through trusts and lifetime gifts. A major motivation for saving and building businesses is to pass assets on so children and grandchildren have a better life.

What all this means is that the higher the estate tax, the lower the incentive to reinvest in family businesses. Former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin recently used the Summers study as a springboard to compare the economic cost of a 45% estate tax versus a zero rate. He finds that the long-term impact of eliminating the death tax would be to increase small business capital investment by $1.6 trillion. This additional investment would create 1.5 million new jobs.

In other words, by raising the estate tax in the name of fairness, Mr. Obama won't merely bring back from the dead one of the most despised of all federal taxes, and not merely splinter many family-owned enterprises. He will also forfeit half the jobs he hopes to gain from his $787 billion stimulus bill. Maybe that's why the news of this unwise tax increase was hidden in a footnote.

~~~

From the link provided if you had cared to read and comprehend.

It is a death tax, levied when a person dies, against his Estate, even though when alive the person paid taxes all his life on income and property. If you are so ideologically entranced by taxing the rich in every which way you can, it is most likely because you have no business, no property and no progeny, like most of the Usual Suspects, that would inherit your lifetime of achievements.

Marxists are really slimey bastards; may they all rot in hell!

Amicus the American

 

[Liar]

It is a death tax

No it is not.

But it sounds pretty bitchin' to say, doesn't it?

 

[Carnevil9]

Interesting point to ponder: George Steinbrenner chose THIS year to croak. Before the death tax exemption expired. Thus saving his family MILLIONS of dollars. Crazy like a fox, eh?

 

[Handley_Page]

I get a frustrated feeling when people advocate the redistribution of wealth. I wonder would anyone care to explain and justify that procedure?

Thank you.

Amicus

Well, not being a US citizen, I have trouble in grasping some of your views, but here goes.
In the UK, it is, or was, called "Death Duties". It was originally designed to get some cash from those owning vast swathes of the country and who paid little (proportionate) Tax thereon. The collected Taxes enables a form of alleviation on those who's income was so low as to force them into further penury.

"Re-distribution of Wealth" starts out with "from each according to his mean; to each according to his needs", so that the "poor fisherman" ** , now relieved of an excessive tax burden can now afford a half-decent boat, make money and pay more in Taxes for the government to spend.

The level set for this Tax is usually far higher than most ordinary folk would or could earn in a lifetime, although Inflation and so on forces it closer, I fear.

It is not a disincentive to "invest in the Family business". Apart from the usual "family business cycle" (where the third generation spoils the enterprise), there are too many variables to use the "family investment" argument, especially these days where things change so rapidly.


** Think of the "feed a man and that's all you do. Teach him to fish and he can feed his family."

 

[TE999]

Theoretically, taxes are imposed by governments to perform useful tasks such as having a standing army and navy, building roads, providing clean water and efficient sanitation and having pretty places to camp and picnic; not supporting legions of deadbeats that breed like rats, providing jobs for career politicians and their relatives and generally poking busybody noses into how everyone lives their lives and telling them how they could do it better.

The 'Death Tax' isn't a tax just like 'Death Panels' aren't integral to the success of Obeymecare...a rose by any other name still has thorns. It's another form of income redistribution which is just fine for the have-nots and politicians and a pain in the ass for the productive who provide all the non-government jobs...you know, the kind where you actually earn a living.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The point no one gets is: Every politician, in every place, in every age, aims to loot, plunder, and take every dime there is till the nation is as destitute as Haiti...then they flee to France.

This is where we are now in our history.

 

[oggbashan]

Death Duties, or Inheritance Tax, have been with us in the UK for a long time.

The Tax only used to affect the seriously rich. Over the last thirty years the threshold for the tax to start has been reduced by design and inflation so that a normal family that owns its own home is likely to pay Inheritance Tax.

Inheritance Tax was most iniquitous during the First World War. Many of the landowning classes volunteered all their young men to serve, mainly as officers, on the Western Front. Not only did the fathers, or the sons and heirs die, but their women folk were faced with inheritance tax on the family's property several times over, possibly but rarely to a greater extent than the total value of the estate.

The life expectancy of a junior officer on the Western Front was 9 days. If a dead officer had inherited from an older brother killed earlier on the frontline, the family would be taxed twice when they were still grieving for the first son to die serving his country.

My tax accountants try to keep my estate below the Inheritance Tax threshold. It gets more difficult every year with the increase in house values and the various ways of avoiding the tax being gradually closed off.

Og

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Old Money pays no taxes; only New Money pays taxes.

If you inherit a trust from your bootlegger grandpa, there's no taxes on it. If you bust your ass for 40 years, building a business, the guvmint gets it when you die.