The inheritance tax

[TurtleDude]

I disagree that a steady revenue stream that can be used by the whole of the population is sillier than an individual's potential lump sum of varying value and varying time.

I couldn't care less. Your argument is that of parasitic theft of individual property

 

[TurtleDude]

I believe inheritance taxes on fortunes should kick in around 5 million. That's a good starting point and I believe that's what it is now. Any dependent receiving that amount should have no problem getting a jump start on life and will have an advantage over most other people. Libertarians and conservatives will say that the money was already taxed when earned. Well, not really. Wealthy people and especially those with very large fortunes have found ways to beat the tax man, even if they have to buy a politician or two to accomplish that goal. Without an inheritance tax then we will be in a situation similar to hereditary succession such as in days of old where the prince becomes king after his father died for example. We actually have it now with the coke brothers. I know - George Soros etc. I'm not leaving him out or Warren Buffet either. Why do average income conservatives defend the super rich, anyway? Do they really think that if they work harder and smarter like they are told, then they too can be rich enough to buy private jets and politicians? Sure, maybe one in a million, maybe. Am I jealous of the rich? No, but I think that they have such an enormous advantage as it is now, that without restraining them, they will just accumulate more and more and those at the bottom will sink lower and lower into poverty.

horsecrap. that is based on jealousy of the rich and you assume anyone who has more than a 5 million dollar estate has somehow cheated the tax man. and someone else being rich doesn't damn you to poverty. That is the zero sum game nonsense that the wealth vandals argue.

you also fail to understand the fact that those being hit by this tax are the ones who have paid the most income tax over their lifetimes. This is nothing more than a surcharge on the rich that is imposed to make people like you feel better

 

[Unrepresented]

I couldn't care less. Your argument is that of parasitic theft of individual property

Nope. The individual is dead. Their property is no longer theirs. Their property will be redistributed by any and all processes (the ones you agree with or don't agree with), since, as stated many, many times, they're dead.

You just prefer one form of redistribution over another.

If you and others truly believed that it was theft, we'd all be leaving their former earthly possessions to rot, untouched by man for the eternity of time. Clearly, we're both more pragmatic than that.

 

[imagep]

I know I would prefer to pay my share of taxes after I'm dead, when I no longer need money.

 

[Mithrae]

If you and others truly believed that it was theft, we'd all be leaving their former earthly possessions to rot, untouched by man for the eternity of time. Clearly, we're both more pragmatic than that.

While the 'taxation is theft' rhetoric is rather hollow - based as it is on a wilful misunderstanding either of what private property actually entails, or the only ethically defensible basis for it - it's even more (and more obviously) absurd to suggest that there's a moral equivalency between someone's possessions going as they wished to their relatives when they die, or some other random people waltzing in and taking it all.

Also unless I missed something, you haven't provided any compelling defence of your 100% inheritance tax scheme against the obvious work-around of siphoning your wealth off to your heirs in the years before you die. Short of outlawing any kind of gift-giving at all, I suppose.

 

[Unrepresented]

While the 'taxation is theft' rhetoric is rather hollow - based as it is on a wilful misunderstanding either of what private property actually entails, or the only ethically defensible basis for it - it's even more (and more obviously) absurd to suggest that there's a moral equivalency between someone's possessions going as they wished to their relatives when they die, or some other random people waltzing in and taking it all.

We're simply discussing a pecking order here. There is no objective hierarchy towards who should be pecking first.

 

[blaxshep]

I couldn't care less. Your argument is that of parasitic theft of individual property

Two questions:

1) How could you possibly care about what happens to your Estate when you are dead, You're dead.

2) What is wrong with expecting your progeny to make their own way in life? You helped them all your life while you were alive, you bought them a car and paid for their college, did you not? If the intent was to just hand them your millions why bother educating them for any profession to begin with? You should have just let them drop out of school and spend their lives partying on the beaches around the world doing nothing.

 

[Mithrae]

We're simply discussing a pecking order here. There is no objective hierarchy towards who should be pecking first.

Of course there is, it's called a will. You just don't like that, so you're trying to argue that once they're dead it doesn't matter what they wanted. But once again, I've seen no response to obvious work-arounds such as a simple clause stating that their possessions will be deemed to have passed into others' ownership the minute before they died. While alive, they give it to other people who are alive. However long it might then take the legal formalities to be sorted out, it'd be more than enough to show the "it wasn't owned by anyone" rhetoric up as so much empty sophistry.

 

[Unrepresented]

Of course there is, it's called a will. You just don't like that, so you're trying to argue that once they're dead it doesn't matter what they wanted. But once again, I've seen no response to obvious work-arounds such as a simple clause stating that their possessions will be deemed to have passed into others' ownership the minute before they died. While alive, they give it to other people who are alive. However long it might then take the legal formalities to be sorted out, it'd be more than enough to show the "it wasn't owned by anyone" rhetoric up as so much empty sophistry.

Addressing it with "gift tax" is relatively easy.

There's no reason we are obligated to view wills as absolute. We already have limits on what's included in a will, we're entirely capable of adding more limits.

 

[Mithrae]

Addressing it with "gift tax" is relatively easy.

It might be, except for someone who wants to tax gifts at 100%. That isn't the point, however. The point is that the grounds on which you attempted to sidestep the fact that it's taking someone else's property were fallacious, or ill-considered at best. I just don't like poor arguments. Just the way I was raised, I suppose.

 

[Winchester]

Two questions:

1) How could you possibly care about what happens to your Estate when you are dead, You're dead.

2) What is wrong with expecting your progeny to make their own way in life? You helped them all your life while you were alive, you bought them a car and paid for their college, did you not? If the intent was to just hand them your millions why bother educating them for any profession to begin with? You should have just let them drop out of school and spend their lives partying on the beaches around the world doing nothing.

What about your spouse, should they be able to inherit your property?

 

[TurtleDude]

Nope. The individual is dead. Their property is no longer theirs. Their property will be redistributed by any and all processes (the ones you agree with or don't agree with), since, as stated many, many times, they're dead.

You just prefer one form of redistribution over another.

If you and others truly believed that it was theft, we'd all be leaving their former earthly possessions to rot, untouched by man for the eternity of time. Clearly, we're both more pragmatic than that.

you're just being stupid. You seem to think that all wealth belongs to the government because you are mad others have more than you do.

you still haven't figured out that I am arguing that someone who owns something as a right to give it away

 

[TurtleDude]

I know I would prefer to pay my share of taxes after I'm dead, when I no longer need money.

estate taxes, if they have to exist, should be for those who didn't pay sufficient taxes during their lifetime--not a surcharge on those who pay the most

 

[TurtleDude]

Two questions:

1) How could you possibly care about what happens to your Estate when you are dead, You're dead.

2) What is wrong with expecting your progeny to make their own way in life? You helped them all your life while you were alive, you bought them a car and paid for their college, did you not? If the intent was to just hand them your millions why bother educating them for any profession to begin with? You should have just let them drop out of school and spend their lives partying on the beaches around the world doing nothing.

what is wrong with you deciding what you want to do for your children and not telling other people what we ought to do.

your ASSumptions are idiotic and oozing envy

 

[Unrepresented]

It might be, except for someone who wants to tax gifts at 100%. That isn't the point, however. The point is that the grounds on which you attempted to sidestep the fact that it's taking someone else's property were fallacious, or ill-considered at best. I just don't like poor arguments. Just the way I was raised, I suppose.

I disagree. This discussion is on the redistribution of property, not taking property.

 

[ocean515]

I started with lemonade at the bus stop, a rural bus stop.

I found my paper route to be too time consuming, I figured I was making about 3 cents an hour and sold it.

Paper boys are gone, and kids under 16 cannot operate a lawn mower without supervision, and kids have organized and supervised "play dates", making money is discourage, a local school just suspended a kid for distributing his price list for his art.

Way to go, socialists, tell an artist its wrong to make money off what he does.

BUT, as with all socialist ideas, it backfired. The kid is good and the publicity has given him commissions. That's how their ideas always turn out, unintended consequences usually counter to what you intended.

LOL. I guess I wasn't wise enough in my paperboy days to concern myself with return on investment. I wasn't until later in life, and after two business failures, that I applied your worm business model to my efforts.

When I see kids getting their stands shut down, I realize how foolish society has become to have allowed certain people to push us into the abyss.

 

[blaxshep]

What about your spouse, should they be able to inherit your property?

Your spouse already owns your property, so I wouldn't take it away from her.

 

[ocean515]

Humanity has wealth because each generation has stood on the prior generations shoulders.

No, humanity has wealth because each generation has done what the previous generation did not, or could not.

 

[blaxshep]

what is wrong with you deciding what you want to do for your children and not telling other people what we ought to do.

your ASSumptions are idiotic and oozing envy

Actually your responses are oozing greed, its not even about your children, who would be much better off living free and clear on your millions then having to work a job, it's about mine, mine, mine, all mine, even from beyond the grave.

 

[ocean515]

Tell that to Bernie Madeoff.

And to you REALLY believe that Paris Hilton is that smart?

Bernie Madeoff has something people wanted, and he was willing to charge for it. That he was a scumbag doesn't change anything.

And Paris Hilton is brilliant. Don't be jealous.

 

[ocean515]

I bought my first bike made from removing pesky raccoons from peoples' basements and attics. this was before it was illegal to live trap them and release them out in the country. Now you got to cap them but back in the 60s I was pretty good at it and I split the money with my mom who would do the driving with her station wagon. I got 5 bucks a removal and would often get 15-20 a month

Dang, I love these stories. Someone needs to start a thread. Perhaps the hand wringers could learn a thing or two. $5 a raccoon. What a country!!!

 

[blaxshep]

Tell that to Bernie Madeoff.

And to you REALLY believe that Paris Hilton is that smart?

Actually, Berine Madeoff is one of the greatest Capitalist that ever lived.

 

[Winchester]

Your spouse already owns your property, so I wouldn't take it away from her.

Not necessarily.

 

[TurtleDude]

Actually your responses are oozing greed, its not even about your children, who would be much better off living free and clear on your millions then having to work a job, it's about mine, mine, mine, all mine, even from beyond the grave.

so you think you are in a better position than millions of others-to tell us what we should do

its all about giving to others and you seem upset that someone didn't give enough to you so you want to vandalize the ability of others do to for theirs what yours didn't do for you

 

[Unrepresented]

What about your spouse, should they be able to inherit your property?

There could be some accommodations made in certain cases. Perhaps something like a reverse mortgage.

The point isn't to put people out of business/homes, it's to level the playing field.