> People's desire to support friends, families and personal interests is a core reason for an individual to work beyond individual self sufficiency. The fact t

> People's desire to support friends, families and personal interests is a core reason for an individual to work beyond individual self sufficiency. The fact that the income being taxed is "beyond individual self sufficiency," actually makes it easier to justify taxing. This isn't someone's food budget--it's the extra on top after one's life is fully funded. > Taxes have already been paid on this money - double dipping is very easy to cast as unfair. This argument has never made sense. Money gets taxed over and over. It's not like a dollar bill gets taxed once and then you mark it with a pen so it never gets taxed again. Money typically gets taxed when it changes hands: Your company pays you money, it gets taxed. You buy something from a store, that money gets taxed. The store owner issues a dividend to shareholders, it gets taxed. The shareholders get bank interest from that money, it gets taxed. There's nothing unusual about taxing a dollar over and over. > Clumsy implementations of these types of taxes create situations where small family owned farms and businesses need to be liquidated to cover taxes causing more pain and disruption for families. This is a sentimental-sounding trope that doesn't really happen in practice. In the USA, inheritance income under $13M doesn't even get taxed at all. This is well outside of the scope of "small farms and businesses." Inheritance, in fact, tends to benefit recipients tax-wise: An heir is allowed to adjust the cost basis of an inherited asset to its market value on the day of the previous owner's death, so that all the previous owner's unrealized capital gains never get taxed. Sitting on $1M of capital gains from your meme stock that you don't want to pay taxes on? Just leave it to your kid in your will--those gains won't be taxed! The other commenter addressed your other two issues.