death to the death tax!
- Thread starter drychlick
- Start date
I can ride with that. I'm a bit of an anarchist personally, so in that sense I'd really be cool with all tax being abolished. Every man to himself, cave man style. It eliminates alot of the never-ending arguments over what the government is doing. Sure, I'm not saying we don't pay for a few basic things like streetlights and interstates, but for the greater part? People don't really need government as much as everybody tends to think. In any case, if somebody drops dead, I don't see any reason why the whole taxation bit needs to go on any further.
Put it like this: Your co-worker asks for $5. Tomorrow morning, your co-worker gets run over by a taxi cab and dies. You attend the funeral, not to pay respects, but so that you reach into the coffin when nobody is looking to see if he's still got his wallet on him.
Put it like this: Your co-worker asks for $5. Tomorrow morning, your co-worker gets run over by a taxi cab and dies. You attend the funeral, not to pay respects, but so that you reach into the coffin when nobody is looking to see if he's still got his wallet on him.
I think we should replace the estate tax with a fine for poor grammar to replace the lost revenue.
You have an estate tax?!?
For those who for whatever odd reason don't understand what estate/death tax is, maybe I should explain. It is the condition wherein the assets of a person, after death, are taxed before being passed on in accordance with that person's will.
In other words, when Grandpa dies and leaves you his house, Uncle Sam skims X% off the top before giving you the keys.
In other words, when Grandpa dies and leaves you his house, Uncle Sam skims X% off the top before giving you the keys.
I'm for it when it served its original purpose, which at least here was to stop huge estates passing family member to family member without the taxman ever seeing it again, allowing the aristocracy to live essentially tax-free. But the rapidly rising house prices over the last decade or so have meant that many regular folks' estates now come close to what was originally a phenomenal cut-off point of £300k. As a result, I think the threshold needs re-examining, or the tax should be dropped.
I'm with cultcross. Particularly large estates--at least those worth several million--should be taxed to prevent perpetual financial dynasties. Taxing somebody who inherited a $300,000 house, though, seems a bit silly. It should be adjusted with its original purpose in mind, not levied indiscriminately.
This.
And that will only be the case because wages have been driven down to the point where most people have no income tax liability. Great job!
Pointing that out certainly doesn't help your cause.
Indeed, the top 1% in the US earns 20% of all the income. In other words, 99% of the population gets to fight over the remaining 80% of the income that's left. The bottom 50% earn only 12.8% of all income in the US. So, yeah, I would think the half of the population that fights over less than 15% of all wages in this country shouldn't be paying taxes. Good Lord.
If you look at wealth rather than income distribution, the picture is slanted even more toward the top end.
Source.
Well, not quite.
That only applies if Grandpa owned several million dollars in property.
In the U.S., the first several million (forgot the exact amount- I want to say $2.5m) are exempt from estate taxes. The same goes for states that have an estate tax. So unless the estate is large, the tax won't kick in.
While the majority of estates aren't affected, I would like to see the minimum level raised so that family farms and other small businesses don't get nailed. Of course, a little financial planning can keep most out of the situation in the first place.
Yeah, I used to work for a CPA, and he helped people set up their assets in trusts and partnerships which, if you set them up right, never fell victim to such taxes. To me, those seem like loopholes we should close.
I'd be okay with limiting the estate tax to some kind of moving "window," such as those estates that are in the top 1% of net worths at the time the owner dies. I suppose that would be similar to making yearly COLA adjustments.
Just looked up the estate tax- the first $3.5 million (up from $2m in 2008) is exempt from estate taxes.
Yes. I don't know why we have all these taxes when the money isn't being used right to begin with? There should only be 2 taxes in America 1. A flat National Tax of 15% and A State Tax of 5%...those numbers can be adjusted as long as they are low and stay flat...IMHO. TY.
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