End The Birth Tax!

[dpbrown]

THE BIRTH TAX: The right wing has been on a mission to define the tax on inherited wealth as a "http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/06/20030618-12.html">death tax." (Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro have documented how the right did so in their book, "http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/s7919.html">Death by a Thousand Cuts.") While http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm">2.4 million Americans die each year, the federal government only collects taxes on 12,600 estates, meaning only 0.5 percent of Americans who die pay any estate tax under this year's exemption levels. "Calling this a 'death tax' as if it applies to all, or even many, Americans who die," writes the Brookings Institution's Diane Lim Rogers, "is truly false advertising." Instead, repealing the estate tax will http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/05/31/EDGDOIJLQP1.DTL">add thousands of dollars to the tax burden of our children and grandchildren. (The current burden on http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm">$8.3 trillion of debt is nearly http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/">$28,000.) Full repeal is expected to cost the government http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1686927">$745 billion after the first 10 years that it is in effect, and http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1686927">$1 trillion as interest accrues on the added debt. Rogers estimates this will http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/05/31/EDGDOIJLQP1.DTL">add an additional $3,000 to the per-person debt burden. To put the $1 trillion figure into perspective, the http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR2006042601601.html">total cost of the Iraq war will hit $320 billion once the Senate passes the latest supplemental bill. And in 2005, the http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy07/pdf/hist.pdf">federal government spent $39 billion on homeland security, $38 billion on K-12 education, and $28.7 billion on veterans health care -- all paltry figures when compared to the long-term cost of estate tax repeal. The money going towards repeal could also be used to keep http://www.cbpp.org/5-1-06socsec.htm">Social Security solvent over 75 years.

From The Progress Report

[dpbrown]

1. Kick

:kick:

[anewdeal]

2. end the death tax

the solution to the national debt isn't to tax people after they die, it is to stop spending so much damn money!

[Wetzelbill]

3. well it isn't really taxing people after they die

it's taxing an exchange of wealth. It has nothing to do with the dead, but with the people who are recieving the free cash. It's the same as taxing a lottery winner. The estate tax also doesn't apply to immediate family members or to people who are not exorbitantly wealthy.

[anewdeal]

5. it is and it isn't

when someone dies, they really don't have any use for any of their worldly possesions. We could give all corpses to necrophiliacs and it really wouldn't matter to the dead person because they're dead and they can't care. Of course we could take all their money and it wouldn't affect them, and the estate tax technically isn't a "death tax" because the tax is one the recipients of the dead person's money.

That said, how would you feel if the government took away half of what you willed to your family? I know I wouldn't want it. Obviously when I'm dead, I can't care, but right now, while I'm living I think it is very wrong.

[Bridget Burke]

6. How many millions do you plan on leaving your kids?

You do know that most of us will never be touched by the estate tax.

Anyone with brains enough to earn that much money can ensure that their kids are fixed for life. If they just inherited it--they might not be bright at all. Just one more reason for the inheritance tax.

[anewdeal]

7. Currently, I don't have kids

But if I did have millions of dollars I would want what I earned during my life to go to what I wanted, not what some government beaurocrat wanted.

[Wetzelbill]

4. oh yeah, welcome to DU btw

:)