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There's not a whole lot of benefit to society of inheritances. Inheritances mostly just distorts society and encourages a "fuck you, got mine" attitude We shou

by Eridrus 10y ago

There's not a whole lot of benefit to society of inheritances. Inheritances mostly just distorts society and encourages a "fuck you, got mine" attitude We should certainly be more aggressive about taxing inheritances since we are very far from the point where people will stop working because they have no desire for money.

twblalock 10y ago
The inheritance tax is a tax on people who were too stupid to put their money in a family trust or similar arrangement before they died. It's trivial to avoid if you are the kind of person who has enough money to be subject to such a tax. Increase the tax, and avoidance will increase as well.
- hadfgdasf 10y ago
  You would be wrong, because you do not understand the estate tax system in the USA. There are things like the generation skipping tax. All the significant loopholes are covered, in terms of passing on wealth and avoiding any estate tax. That said, the estate tax is very low. The exemption is huge. The vast majority of people who die in this country are just folks and they bury their dead and they don't go through probate or have trusts. Maybe they have a little life insurance if they are lucky.
  - pg314 10y ago
    Has anything changed on that front since 2013? Has the GRAT loophole been closed? [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-17/accidental-tax-break-saves-wealthiest-americans-100-billion https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-17/accidenta...
    - hadfgdasf 10y ago
      GRAT loophole is not just a "family trust," and it doesn't make estate/gift tax trivial to avoid. It is ridiculous that it persists though.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  I don't know all the loopholes, but I agree that we should be closing them. The thing about the law is that it can be very flexible if we want it to be, so if we were serious about enforcement we could definitely do it, we're just not that serious about it.
234dd57d2c8dba 10y ago
What gives you the right to treat other people's hard work as some kind of treasure chest you can loot? How about I come to your house and start drinking your beer? There's not a lot of benefit to society for you to have beer in your fridge, after all. You could be feeding some orphans or helping some refugees instead of lazing around drinking beer. If you want something, work for it. Don't steal it from others.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  A rights-based framework is not the only way of making decisions in this world. It's one a lot of people who are fortunate enough to have attained success in life, or expect to in the future, subscribe to, but it's not the only way to see the world. If you were to follow your reasoning through to it's extreme the same way your beer example does, you would probably need to give all of society's land back to the native populations, but I doubt you're rushing to do that, I'm sure you have some moral gymnastics that makes that fine, but anyone trying to make a claim to anything you see as yours is immoral. While you certainly may have worked hard, and I have no desire to disincentivize hard work, our position in society at birth and even our genetics are probabilistic, so I find it hard to justify the idea that the fruits of your labour should be yours alone. Private property is a useful concept, but it is also not a universal requirement for a society, nor is is a binary feature.
- theonemind 10y ago
  The native Americans didn't have a concept of land ownership. What gives anyone the right to own land? The land existed before us, and stays here after we die. That you can own it seems kind of strange, when you think about it. We make up the rules. We want to benefit society, and usually, to some degree, protect individual rights. If we change the rules so that we take your property when you die, then people thereafter get born into a world where they know that they can't work to have some amassed property passed on when they die. If I responded with the same kind of hyperbole you used, I'd just say you can't steal from dead people, and what gives a dead person a right to dictate what happens in the world of the living?

by Eridrus 10y ago

twblalock 10y ago

The inheritance tax is a tax on people who were too stupid to put their money in a family trust or similar arrangement before they died. It's trivial to avoid if you are the kind of person who has enough money to be subject to such a tax. Increase the tax, and avoidance will increase as well.

hadfgdasf 10y ago
You would be wrong, because you do not understand the estate tax system in the USA. There are things like the generation skipping tax. All the significant loopholes are covered, in terms of passing on wealth and avoiding any estate tax. That said, the estate tax is very low. The exemption is huge. The vast majority of people who die in this country are just folks and they bury their dead and they don't go through probate or have trusts. Maybe they have a little life insurance if they are lucky.
- pg314 10y ago
  Has anything changed on that front since 2013? Has the GRAT loophole been closed? [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-17/accidental-tax-break-saves-wealthiest-americans-100-billion https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-17/accidenta...
  - hadfgdasf 10y ago
    GRAT loophole is not just a "family trust," and it doesn't make estate/gift tax trivial to avoid. It is ridiculous that it persists though.
Eridrus 10y ago
I don't know all the loopholes, but I agree that we should be closing them. The thing about the law is that it can be very flexible if we want it to be, so if we were serious about enforcement we could definitely do it, we're just not that serious about it.

234dd57d2c8dba 10y ago

What gives you the right to treat other people's hard work as some kind of treasure chest you can loot? How about I come to your house and start drinking your beer? There's not a lot of benefit to society for you to have beer in your fridge, after all. You could be feeding some orphans or helping some refugees instead of lazing around drinking beer. If you want something, work for it. Don't steal it from others.

Eridrus 10y ago
A rights-based framework is not the only way of making decisions in this world. It's one a lot of people who are fortunate enough to have attained success in life, or expect to in the future, subscribe to, but it's not the only way to see the world. If you were to follow your reasoning through to it's extreme the same way your beer example does, you would probably need to give all of society's land back to the native populations, but I doubt you're rushing to do that, I'm sure you have some moral gymnastics that makes that fine, but anyone trying to make a claim to anything you see as yours is immoral. While you certainly may have worked hard, and I have no desire to disincentivize hard work, our position in society at birth and even our genetics are probabilistic, so I find it hard to justify the idea that the fruits of your labour should be yours alone. Private property is a useful concept, but it is also not a universal requirement for a society, nor is is a binary feature.
theonemind 10y ago
The native Americans didn't have a concept of land ownership. What gives anyone the right to own land? The land existed before us, and stays here after we die. That you can own it seems kind of strange, when you think about it. We make up the rules. We want to benefit society, and usually, to some degree, protect individual rights. If we change the rules so that we take your property when you die, then people thereafter get born into a world where they know that they can't work to have some amassed property passed on when they die. If I responded with the same kind of hyperbole you used, I'd just say you can't steal from dead people, and what gives a dead person a right to dictate what happens in the world of the living?