Estate tax in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The estate tax in the United States is a tax imposed on the transfer of the "taxable estate" of a deceased person, whether such property is transferred via a will, according to the state laws of intestacy or otherwise made as an incident of the death of the owner, such as a transfer of property from an intestate estate or trust, or the payment of certain life insurance benefits or financial account sums to beneficiaries. The estate tax is one part of the Unified Gift and Estate Tax system in the United States. The other part of the system, the gift tax, imposes a tax on transfers of property during a person's life; the gift tax prevents avoidance of the estate tax should a person want to give away his/her estate. In addition to the federal government, many states also impose an estate tax, with the state version called either an estate tax or an inheritance tax. Since the 1990s, opponents of the tax have used the pejorative term, "death tax."[1] The equivalent tax in the United Kingdom has always been referred to as "inheritance tax".
So it is clear that what we have in the USA is indeed an inheritance tax and not a an actual tax upon death. It is clearly a pejorative term designed to have ideological and partisan poloitical implications. It is used intentionally and deliberately by those on the ri9ght as part of a political campaign to save the rich money in inheritance taxes.
The loaded political meaning of the term is clearly outlined and described in the same article.
The term "death tax" is a neologism used by policy makers and critics to describe the tax in a way that conveys additional meaning. Political use of "death tax" as a synonym for "estate tax" was encouraged by Jack Faris of the National Federation of Independent Business[42] during the Speakership of Newt Gingrich. Well-known Republican pollster Frank Luntz wrote that the term "death tax" "kindled voter resentment in a way that 'inheritance tax' and 'estate tax' do not".[43] Linguist George Lakoff asserts that the term "death tax" is a deliberate and carefully calculated neologism used as a propaganda tactic to aid in efforts to repeal estate taxes. The use of "death tax" rather than "estate tax" in the wording of questions in the 2002 National Election Survey increased support for estate tax repeal by only a few percentage points.[44]
So what we have here is a clear and unmistakable attempt by ideologues to hijack a term and misappropriate it, to twist it, to pervert it into something else entirely in order to further their own narrow ideological desires.
When you Turtle use it here you follow the instructions exactly as Faris urged conservatives to use it. When you Turtle use it here you do so exactly as Luntz advocated conservatives use it. When you Turtle use it here you do so as Lakoff intends - as a propoganda tactic divorced from factual reality.
The invocation of the term "death tax" is for purely ideological reasons in the furtherance of a far right agenda.
You have revealed the crux of the issue in your own words
why do they want the government to take stuff that others have earned?
Because OTHERS HAVE EARNED IT. Others paid tax on it. NOT YOU. Not the recipient of the estate. You did not EARN anything and now you have admitted it in print.
In America we do not believe in a landed gentry class which can permanently ride atop the social and economic structure by passing wealth and property from one generation to the next in an endless series of non-taxable transfers of wealth. The estate tax is simply part of that.
Your own state of Ohio agrees and has an estate tax that only the wealthy pay. This is from the official state website and here is the language
Ohio Department of Taxation Estate Tax
Table of Contents
The Ohio estate tax was enacted in 1968 to replace a state inheritance tax, but its roots can be traced back to 1893, when an inheritance tax was enacted during the McKinley administration.
Under current law, the estates of residents with a net taxable value of $338,333 or less are effectively exempt from payment of the tax. A 6 percent tax rate applies to any net taxable value above that mark, up to $500,000. A 7 percent rate applies to any net taxable value over $500,000.
People who suffer death in Ohio do not get taxed for it. The transfer of wealth through inheritance is taxed through an Estate Tax if the value if over $338,333.00.
You keep saying that death is what triggers the tax. That is silly in the extreme. You might as well say the purchase of the coffin triggers the tax and call it a COFFIN TAX. Or perhaps the embalming triggered the tax and call it an EMBALMING TAX. Or perhaps the erection of the tombstone triggered the tax and call it an ERECTION TAX. No - bad idea. The fact is that if the wealthiest person in Ohio - or turtle himself decided to collect all their wealth in one spot, converting to piles of cash and make a funeral pyre of it viking style going out of this world in flames - there would be be tax on that wealthiest person in Ohio because they literally took it all with them. they suffered death - they were wealthy - but since they pass no estate on - all they leave is worthless ashes and there is no tax.
PREDICTION: Turtle will not attempt to reply intelligently to any of these points. He will simply make his usual blanket statement and dismiss all of it. That is fine. This is not being printed here for his benefit.
