6 ms·

This is a great argument for an absurdly high estate tax. You can’t inherit ill-gotten gains if you don’t inherit anything at all!

ChrisLomont 6y ago
So punishment for everyone because someone, somewhere may have done something that decades later was made illegal? What kind of bizarre sadism is that?
- FDSGSG 6y ago
  Who does estate tax punish?
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    The children of the people who managed to live out their days without going broke and becoming a burden on everyone else have less money than if their parents spent it all (presumably some of which would have been on them) and died with debt. The people who lived out their days without going broke lose because their property rights are being violated. Their property and their dollars that they have already paid taxes on should be theirs to give away as they see fit.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      Not being entitled to something no one else is entitled to either is not a punishment, otherwise it's a punishment to me when I can't have your dad's money. Children aren't even entitled to their parents money in adulthood. Parents have to choose to give it to them either explicitly or by omission.
    - eesmith 6y ago
      If that's punishment for the children of the rich, then those children born to parents who are broke must also live a punished life, yes? If you are against children being punished because of the economics of their parents, then surely you are in support for a strong social safety network for children (universal subsidized/free childcare, including meals, and healthcare), yes? Which requires taxation or other funding sources. Which means we must ponder things like: how much of Sam Walton's $100 million inheritance did his children need in order to not be punished by a higher inheritance tax? $5 million each?
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        The rich will still be rich. They'll come up with complex workarounds. They'll impart the money on their kids while they're still alive. The people who will be screwed are the middle class people who's only (if any) windfall in life is inheriting part of their parents house and using that to pay off their own mortgage or send their kids to college or whatever (and who's kids will likely inherit a share of the house and continue the cycle).
        eesmith 6y ago
        It seems you are making an argument from apathy - since there's nothing we can do about the rich, we shouldn't do anything? Because we can certainly reduce the number of complex workarounds - which were deliberately introduced to allow the rich to have those workarounds. We can increase the taxation rate for the highest tax bracket, like the 90% it once was. And we can increase the estate tax. The current federal estate tax has an exemption of $5 million. Just how many middle class families do you think would be unable to send their kids to college if the estate tax rate after the first $5 million was increased? For that matter, how many middle class families would be unable to send their kids to college of the exemption were lowered to $2 million? Because $2 million seems like a lot to me. Poorer people will receive no windfall in life. Since you want people to have windfall ... how do you want to support poor people? How should the children of the poor go to college or whatever? Because otherwise what you write sounds like a standard wedge argument - get the middle class to fear for losing what little they have, in order so the rich benefit even more, while the poor get left out. Higher pay via stronger union rights (repeal Taft-Hartley now!), universal college education. These help give your desired economic windfall for the middle class and my desired windfall for the less well off. The rich and the children of the rich will still be rich.
        vel0city 6y ago
        The US currently exempts $11.5 million per person for estate taxes (IANAL). A family inheriting their parent's estate does not pay taxes on the first $23 million dollars worth of assets. Even then, taxes only apply on amounts greater than that exemption amount, so to have an estate tax take a significant amount of your estate income would require way more than $23 million. With your example its hard to claim the family is "middle class" when they're already homeowners and are inheriting well more than $23 million.
    - adamsea 6y ago
      Who is a burden on everyone else, and how? I thought the whole point of ... civilization was for people to support each other.
  - ChrisLomont 6y ago
    The parent poster stated that people breaking laws is argument for high estate tax. Is this not chosen as a form of punishment? If it had zero punishment effect, why do it? If taking money away was not a form of punishment, why is it used as punishment in so many court cases? It punishes those who would have had the assets otherwise. Especially when the stated reason is to punish them.
    - charlesu 6y ago
      I didn’t say it was a punishment. I said it was a good argument. There’s no legal method of getting back ill-gotten gains from someone who’s dead. But if you can’t pass along your estate, it doesn’t matter. For the record, I don’t think the state taking away most (or all) of a person's estate after they’ve died is a punishment at all.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Is this not chosen as a form of punishment? It's only punishment if you think there is a natural right to control the disposition of property after death. Otherwise, it's just a argument as to why a purely optional benefit not grounded in rights should not be extended by the state. Not extending a benefit to which there is no entitlement is not inherently a punishment.
      - ChrisLomont 6y ago
        So the state should seize mom and pop shops when mom and pop dies? Then what? Try to sell it? Have it as state run enterprises? Now every generation must completely pull themselves up from zero, and the state seizing all value every time someone dies? Parents die accidentally - too bad for kids, the state seized all value and sent the kids into some state system. Countries that seize this much property don’t do too well economically.
        eesmith 6y ago
        When the owners of a husband and wife shop die, with no inheritors, then what? If the children of the mom and pop shop die, and the children are preschool aged, with no other inheritors or people designated to handle the estate, then what? Effectively no one says that "every generation must completely pull themselves up from zero". Do you seriously think the children of working/labor class families, living in rental housing, and with no capital, completely pull themselves up from zero? Since they don't, neither do the children you hypothesis. So what's the point of your argument other than to tug at our heartstrings about those orphans? Oh, and if the mom and pop shop is bankrupt, or has little capital, and there isn't family or close friends able and willing to take care of the kids, then who will? Oh, right, "some state system." So if you are so concerned about these children, perhaps we need better orphanages and better support for the foster system. Now, how do we fund those improvements?
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
So we should tax the crap out of everyone's estates on the premise that they probably wronged society and that society will need to pay to un-screw up whatever they did?!? Whatever happened to giving people the benefit of the doubt? Whatever happens to presumption of innocence? Firstly anyone with a brain is gonna conveniently go broke before they die if you try and pull something like that. Second I'm struggling to find words for just how fundamentally wrong, unethical and dystopian the assumptions that underlie your comment are. I and a hell of a lot of people don't want to live in a society where assuming malice is the default like that.
- ses1984 6y ago
  How about we just tax the crap out of everyone's estates so that our democracy doesn't devolve into a feudal oligarchy. Oops, too late.
- nix0n 6y ago
  > So we should tax the crap out of everyone's estates Just the wealthy. Estate taxes have (in the USA) applied only to large estates. > on the premise that they probably wronged society Some wealth is inherited now, but large gains (extracted from the market) are generally the result of exploitation. > anyone with a brain is gonna conveniently go broke before they die That's already happening, they call it The Giving Project.
  - burrows 6y ago
    Is there a precise definition for ‘exploitation’? Is it a function of feelings?
- charlesu 6y ago
  We should tax the crap out of everyone’s estates because it’s aligned with the American value of equal opportunity. Do you want to live in a society where everyone has a fair shot? Then you need the estate tax. It’s the great equalizer. We can the funds to improve our schools, roads, and social services so that everyone is a bit better off.
unishark 6y ago
You can't really make an estate tax work higher than the income or gift tax, since people can just sidestep it by giving the inheritance early.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  I think of the gift tax as just the pre-death version of the estate tax. IRS Form 709 and Publication 559 make fairly clear that this is not inadvertent.
- charlesu 6y ago
  Raise the gift tax and income tax as well. High taxes on high earners is a good thing. It spurs investment, flattens the distribution of wealth and income, and spurs spending. Give a millionaire a million dollars and he’ll save it or “invest it”, inflating asset prices even further. Give a thousand people and thousand dollars and most will spend it, helping the economy.
athms 6y ago
Only 0.002% of estates pay the tax every year. The best way to avoid paying the tax is to reduce the wealth of an estate by transferring it to insurance or separate entities like a foundation, limited liability company, family limited partnership, or charitable trust. Most wealthy people start estate planning long before retirement. The ones that end up paying are folks like Prince or the newly wealthy that die young.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  > Only 0.002% of estates pay the tax every year. That is wrong by a factor of ~100. 0.2% of estates in 2017 paid an estate tax. [0] [0] - https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-the-federal-estate-tax https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-shou...
- charlesu 6y ago
  All loopholes that can be legislated away with enough political will.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    What's the likelihood that the multi-millionaires in the Legislature actually want to tackle this? https://ballotpedia.org/Net_worth_of_United_States_Senators_and_Representatives https://ballotpedia.org/Net_worth_of_United_States_Senators_... (That was for 2011; it's a reasonably safe bet that as a group they're no poorer now.)
  - webmaven 6y ago
    > All loopholes that can be legislated away with enough political will. It was political will that created the loopholes in the first place. Getting rid of them unfortunately requires more political will than creating them did. This probably has something to do with loss-aversion.
refurb 6y ago
Agreed! That Hispanic couple who immigrated to the US, built a small business and want to pass it to their kids, screw them! Tax it all away. Let their kids start over!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- orthecreedence 6y ago
  Or set a cap? Anything above $5M is taxed at 95% or something. People will still work hard to pass on wealth to their kids, but anything obscene could go back into a social dividend.
dahfizz 6y ago
I can't tell if you are being sarcastic. "It can be tough to prosecute some crimes, so let's just punish everyone without due process!"

ChrisLomont 6y ago

So punishment for everyone because someone, somewhere may have done something that decades later was made illegal? What kind of bizarre sadism is that?

FDSGSG 6y ago
Who does estate tax punish?
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  The children of the people who managed to live out their days without going broke and becoming a burden on everyone else have less money than if their parents spent it all (presumably some of which would have been on them) and died with debt. The people who lived out their days without going broke lose because their property rights are being violated. Their property and their dollars that they have already paid taxes on should be theirs to give away as they see fit.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Not being entitled to something no one else is entitled to either is not a punishment, otherwise it's a punishment to me when I can't have your dad's money. Children aren't even entitled to their parents money in adulthood. Parents have to choose to give it to them either explicitly or by omission.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    If that's punishment for the children of the rich, then those children born to parents who are broke must also live a punished life, yes? If you are against children being punished because of the economics of their parents, then surely you are in support for a strong social safety network for children (universal subsidized/free childcare, including meals, and healthcare), yes? Which requires taxation or other funding sources. Which means we must ponder things like: how much of Sam Walton's $100 million inheritance did his children need in order to not be punished by a higher inheritance tax? $5 million each?
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      The rich will still be rich. They'll come up with complex workarounds. They'll impart the money on their kids while they're still alive. The people who will be screwed are the middle class people who's only (if any) windfall in life is inheriting part of their parents house and using that to pay off their own mortgage or send their kids to college or whatever (and who's kids will likely inherit a share of the house and continue the cycle).
      - eesmith 6y ago
        It seems you are making an argument from apathy - since there's nothing we can do about the rich, we shouldn't do anything? Because we can certainly reduce the number of complex workarounds - which were deliberately introduced to allow the rich to have those workarounds. We can increase the taxation rate for the highest tax bracket, like the 90% it once was. And we can increase the estate tax. The current federal estate tax has an exemption of $5 million. Just how many middle class families do you think would be unable to send their kids to college if the estate tax rate after the first $5 million was increased? For that matter, how many middle class families would be unable to send their kids to college of the exemption were lowered to $2 million? Because $2 million seems like a lot to me. Poorer people will receive no windfall in life. Since you want people to have windfall ... how do you want to support poor people? How should the children of the poor go to college or whatever? Because otherwise what you write sounds like a standard wedge argument - get the middle class to fear for losing what little they have, in order so the rich benefit even more, while the poor get left out. Higher pay via stronger union rights (repeal Taft-Hartley now!), universal college education. These help give your desired economic windfall for the middle class and my desired windfall for the less well off. The rich and the children of the rich will still be rich.
      - vel0city 6y ago
        The US currently exempts $11.5 million per person for estate taxes (IANAL). A family inheriting their parent's estate does not pay taxes on the first $23 million dollars worth of assets. Even then, taxes only apply on amounts greater than that exemption amount, so to have an estate tax take a significant amount of your estate income would require way more than $23 million. With your example its hard to claim the family is "middle class" when they're already homeowners and are inheriting well more than $23 million.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    Who is a burden on everyone else, and how? I thought the whole point of ... civilization was for people to support each other.
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  The parent poster stated that people breaking laws is argument for high estate tax. Is this not chosen as a form of punishment? If it had zero punishment effect, why do it? If taking money away was not a form of punishment, why is it used as punishment in so many court cases? It punishes those who would have had the assets otherwise. Especially when the stated reason is to punish them.
  - charlesu 6y ago
    I didn’t say it was a punishment. I said it was a good argument. There’s no legal method of getting back ill-gotten gains from someone who’s dead. But if you can’t pass along your estate, it doesn’t matter. For the record, I don’t think the state taking away most (or all) of a person's estate after they’ve died is a punishment at all.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Is this not chosen as a form of punishment? It's only punishment if you think there is a natural right to control the disposition of property after death. Otherwise, it's just a argument as to why a purely optional benefit not grounded in rights should not be extended by the state. Not extending a benefit to which there is no entitlement is not inherently a punishment.
    - ChrisLomont 6y ago
      So the state should seize mom and pop shops when mom and pop dies? Then what? Try to sell it? Have it as state run enterprises? Now every generation must completely pull themselves up from zero, and the state seizing all value every time someone dies? Parents die accidentally - too bad for kids, the state seized all value and sent the kids into some state system. Countries that seize this much property don’t do too well economically.
      - eesmith 6y ago
        When the owners of a husband and wife shop die, with no inheritors, then what? If the children of the mom and pop shop die, and the children are preschool aged, with no other inheritors or people designated to handle the estate, then what? Effectively no one says that "every generation must completely pull themselves up from zero". Do you seriously think the children of working/labor class families, living in rental housing, and with no capital, completely pull themselves up from zero? Since they don't, neither do the children you hypothesis. So what's the point of your argument other than to tug at our heartstrings about those orphans? Oh, and if the mom and pop shop is bankrupt, or has little capital, and there isn't family or close friends able and willing to take care of the kids, then who will? Oh, right, "some state system." So if you are so concerned about these children, perhaps we need better orphanages and better support for the foster system. Now, how do we fund those improvements?

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

So we should tax the crap out of everyone's estates on the premise that they probably wronged society and that society will need to pay to un-screw up whatever they did?!? Whatever happened to giving people the benefit of the doubt? Whatever happens to presumption of innocence? Firstly anyone with a brain is gonna conveniently go broke before they die if you try and pull something like that. Second I'm struggling to find words for just how fundamentally wrong, unethical and dystopian the assumptions that underlie your comment are. I and a hell of a lot of people don't want to live in a society where assuming malice is the default like that.

ses1984 6y ago
How about we just tax the crap out of everyone's estates so that our democracy doesn't devolve into a feudal oligarchy. Oops, too late.
nix0n 6y ago
> So we should tax the crap out of everyone's estates Just the wealthy. Estate taxes have (in the USA) applied only to large estates. > on the premise that they probably wronged society Some wealth is inherited now, but large gains (extracted from the market) are generally the result of exploitation. > anyone with a brain is gonna conveniently go broke before they die That's already happening, they call it The Giving Project.
- burrows 6y ago
  Is there a precise definition for ‘exploitation’? Is it a function of feelings?
charlesu 6y ago
We should tax the crap out of everyone’s estates because it’s aligned with the American value of equal opportunity. Do you want to live in a society where everyone has a fair shot? Then you need the estate tax. It’s the great equalizer. We can the funds to improve our schools, roads, and social services so that everyone is a bit better off.

unishark 6y ago

You can't really make an estate tax work higher than the income or gift tax, since people can just sidestep it by giving the inheritance early.

sokoloff 6y ago
I think of the gift tax as just the pre-death version of the estate tax. IRS Form 709 and Publication 559 make fairly clear that this is not inadvertent.
charlesu 6y ago
Raise the gift tax and income tax as well. High taxes on high earners is a good thing. It spurs investment, flattens the distribution of wealth and income, and spurs spending. Give a millionaire a million dollars and he’ll save it or “invest it”, inflating asset prices even further. Give a thousand people and thousand dollars and most will spend it, helping the economy.

athms 6y ago

Only 0.002% of estates pay the tax every year. The best way to avoid paying the tax is to reduce the wealth of an estate by transferring it to insurance or separate entities like a foundation, limited liability company, family limited partnership, or charitable trust. Most wealthy people start estate planning long before retirement. The ones that end up paying are folks like Prince or the newly wealthy that die young.

sokoloff 6y ago
> Only 0.002% of estates pay the tax every year. That is wrong by a factor of ~100. 0.2% of estates in 2017 paid an estate tax. [0] [0] - https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-the-federal-estate-tax https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-shou...
charlesu 6y ago
All loopholes that can be legislated away with enough political will.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  What's the likelihood that the multi-millionaires in the Legislature actually want to tackle this? https://ballotpedia.org/Net_worth_of_United_States_Senators_and_Representatives https://ballotpedia.org/Net_worth_of_United_States_Senators_... (That was for 2011; it's a reasonably safe bet that as a group they're no poorer now.)
- webmaven 6y ago
  > All loopholes that can be legislated away with enough political will. It was political will that created the loopholes in the first place. Getting rid of them unfortunately requires more political will than creating them did. This probably has something to do with loss-aversion.

refurb 6y ago

Agreed! That Hispanic couple who immigrated to the US, built a small business and want to pass it to their kids, screw them! Tax it all away. Let their kids start over!

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
orthecreedence 6y ago
Or set a cap? Anything above $5M is taxed at 95% or something. People will still work hard to pass on wealth to their kids, but anything obscene could go back into a social dividend.

dahfizz 6y ago

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic. "It can be tough to prosecute some crimes, so let's just punish everyone without due process!"