Congress throws away 5 billion by letting the estate tax lapse for just one individual

[stray cat]

Because congress has failed to re-instate the estate tax after Bush declared a one year moratorium on it; a single estate worth 9 billion will not be tax at the past rate 0f 45-55%. It won't be taxed at all. If 5 billion in tax revenue was rejected -think how much is lost for the entire year as congress fails to agree on how to re-instate it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/business/09estate.html

[leveymg]

1. -

[DrDan]

2. what's another $5B or so with respect to the debt

[stray cat]

3. How many teachers could you retain from 5 billion from just one person dying?

[DrDan]

4. looks like 71,428 - at a loaded rate of $70K per teacher

or 2,381 for a period of 30 years.

nearly 2400 teachers for 30 years. wow!

[EOTE]

8. A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon you're talking about real money. NT

[laughingliberal]

13. I dunno. What was the total they spent on the jobs creation program...

for which the President was quick to tell us we had limited resources?

[indepat]

5. Social security and Medicare must be gutted so those multi-billion dollar estates aren't burdened

with taxation. :grr:

edited for verb tense

[nichomachus]

6. You say that as if it's a bad thing

To the ultra-wealthy, this is the holy grail.

[indepat]

11. Tens of million more ultimately living their golden years in increasing poverty so the 95% or so of

the nation's wealth, accumulated largely with little tax burden, can forevermore escape any meaningful taxation all the while the USA slides to/near the bottom in more and more statistical categories which measure general societal well-being. No doubt that to the ultra-wealthy, this is indeed the holy grail.

[nichomachus]

12. You got it -- Grover Norquist has wet dreams about this

[mhatrw]

7. K&R

[CanonRay]

9. It's almost worth it to have this asshole off the planet

One down...

[Gaedel]

10. At least

The tax cuts had a sunset provision. If Bush had succeeded in making them permanent, there doesn't appear to be much political will to do something about it. This way President Obama gets the tax cuts revoked beginning Jan 1, 2111 without having to expend any political capital to do it.

[Obamanaut]

14. From the linked article, we read this: "...Although Democrats pledged

to close that gap and reinstate a tax for 2010 when they took control of Congress, they failed to reach an agreement last December...."

I betcha all who were involved in this who are seeking reelection will be successful. We vote for 'the name you know' and they all know this, so they don't really care.

[dickthegrouch]

15. I DEMAND equal protection

not that I'll ever earn 10 billion, but just sayin'