Death and taxes
A recent article in The Nation by Bill Gates, Sr. and Chuck Collins talks about the estate tax:
There is a stunning disconnect between the terrible budget shortfalls facing states and localities and the priorities of federal tax-cutters. States face budget deficits of more than $60 billion for the coming year--and the ax is falling on mental health, education and children's healthcare. Libraries are being shuttered, tuitions increased and parks closed. Governors of all political persuasions talk about the need for massive federal relief to the states in the form of block grants and Medicaid subsidies.
and
Today, the estate tax affects less than 2 percent of the richest households, those with wealth exceeding $1 million. A reformed estate tax, with wealth exemptions boosted to $3.5 million, would still generate tens of billions of dollars of revenue a year. Under such a reform, an estimated 6,000 estates a year, averaging $17 million each, would pay the tax. In Maine, Montana, Alaska and Mississippi--states where both senators have voted to completely eliminate the tax--the estimated number of estates paying the tax every year would be fewer than twenty-five.
Proposals to reform the tax have been blocked since 2000 by the "all or nothing" repeal lobby, which understands the peril of not having smaller estates as camouflage. Once exemptions rise above $3 million, it becomes impossible to find a credible and photogenic farmer or restaurant owner who will complain about what opponents call the "death tax." It's hard enough to find them now. The pro-repeal American Farm Bureau was asked to produce an example of a farmer who had lost a farm because of the estate tax. It could not identify a single one.
There is no reason to repeal the estate tax, no benefit to anyone but the very richest among us, and, as this article points out, much to be lost. There are people who allow themselves to get tied up in knots about the fact that rich people pay more in taxes than you or me or the 'lucky duckies.' But remember, they have most of the money.
...via The Rittenhouse Review