Originally posted by generalissimo"Presumably you want low taxes. Even then, you have to make choices as to what to tax and who to tax. You can put heavy taxes on inheritance to make taxes for the average Joe lower - even if you want only "small government". This is the only aspect of this debate - whether or not government should be "big" or "small" is a different debate. "
when did you point it out?
Originally posted by KazetNagorrait isn't one thing or the other.
"Presumably you want low taxes. Even then, you have to make choices as to what to tax and who to tax. You can put heavy taxes on inheritance to make taxes for the average Joe lower - even if you want only "small government". This is the only aspect of this debate - whether or not government should be "big" or "small" is a different debate. "
The idea that there should be a 100% inheritance tax rate strikes me as being one of the most absurd things you've ever said here, right after your claim that housewifes don't contribute to society.
Quoted from an article in The Guardian (left-of-centre British newspaper) on the subject (the original, by Andy Beckett, is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/oct/12/money.tax):
Fifty-one years ago, the Labour politician and thinker Anthony Crosland set out his ideas about inheritance tax in his famous book The Future of Socialism. "Death duties," he wrote, "have, as compared with other forms of taxation, notable advantages. They are politically perhaps the least controversial of taxes; the moral argument against large inheritance, on grounds of equal opportunity and the equation of rewards with personal effort, is now widely accepted; and the number of people affected is very small."
"How high should the duties be raised?" pondered Crosland. Although he was considered to be on the right and not the left of the party, his answer was confidently radical: "The socialist case against large inherited fortunes clearly requires a maximum limit on the amount of inheritance permitted."
Beckett goes on to discuss how the ground has shifted, and how inheritance tax has become increasingly controversial, so that it is now one of the least popular of all taxes. The question is, why the shift? Beckett´s article concludes by suggesting that it´s about a broader change in attitudes:
Perhaps the revolt against inheritance tax underlines another awkward truth about modern Britain. These days, Britons, whether of the left or the right, are generally thought to be meritocrats, in favour of social mobility, of people making their own way. But, in fact, Britain is one of the least socially mobile rich countries, and its class boundaries have been steadily solidifying ever since Margaret Thatcher was elected. In his focus groups on inheritance tax, [director of public policy at Oxford University Stuart] White found, "People weren't actually very receptive to the idea of equality of opportunity. The younger participants didn't really get the idea that equality had anything to do with life chances or the distribution of wealth. What seems to have come through in Britain, post-Thatcher, is not so much a meritocracy as a feeling that what you get is what you're entitled to."
In this context, the ability to inherit a large sum tax-free has become not a doomed and unacceptable privilege, as Crosland thought it would, but a right or, to use the Conservatives' preferred word, an "aspiration". One of the findings of White's focus groups, which fits with other research in the same area, was that "the people least likely to pay inheritance tax are more likely to be hostile to it than people in higher social classes".
Originally posted by KazetNagorraIm not arguing for the abolition of taxation altogether.
Is too. You need to get a certain amount of taxes. If you aren't going to tax inheritance, and not the average Joes, who are you going to tax?
Nor am I saying there should be no inheritance tax, what Im saying is that it must be taxed but at a very low rate, not 100% like you proposed previously.
who do you think?
perhaps businesses, also, have you ever heard of sales tax? VAT?
Originally posted by generalissimoWell, VAT targets average Joes, mostly. Coporate tax is another option but do you really prefer taxing entrepeneurship over being born in a rich family?
Im not arguing for the abolition of taxation altogether.
Nor am I saying there should be no inheritance tax, what Im saying is that it must be taxed but at a very low rate, not 100% like you proposed previously.
who do you think?
perhaps businesses, also, have you ever heard of sales tax? VAT?
Originally posted by KazetNagorraWell, VAT targets average Joes, mostly
Well, VAT targets average Joes, mostly. Coporate tax is another option but do you really prefer taxing entrepeneurship over being born in a rich family?
so what? are you saying they shouldn't pay any tax at all?
Coporate tax is another option but do you really prefer taxing entrepeneurship over being born in a rich family?
I think both should be taxed, but not at an absurd rate like 100%.
Like I said previously, Im not in favor of punishing people for their luck.
Originally posted by generalissimoWell, you need to be able to think in a little more abstract sense. If you tax inheritance more, that means you can tax other things less. I think the economy benefits most if inheritance is taxed as highly as possible (that is not 100% - I never said it should be taxed at 100% ), which creates room to reduce other taxes. If inheritance tax is lower, then it logically follows that taxes for the average Joe and/or corporations must be higher (assuming the total amount of tax is a constant). It's a matter of priorities - which type of tax do you have least problems with?
[b]Well, VAT targets average Joes, mostly
so what? are you saying they shouldn't pay any tax at all?
Coporate tax is another option but do you really prefer taxing entrepeneurship over being born in a rich family?
I think both should be taxed, but not at an absurd rate like 100%.
Like I said previously, Im not in favor of punishing people for their luck.[/b]
If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra taxation violates it.
[From Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert E. Bergh (Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), 14:466.]
http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/index.asp?document=31
Gonna pull a zeeblebot, sorry folks:
[i]Shortly after he took office the second President Bush said, “To keep farms in the family we are going to get rid of the death tax” (Johnston, 2003, p. 73). Ironically the estate tax has no effect on family farms. Gates and Collins found that a highly organized public relations campaign and lobbying effort created the poignant image of minorities being forced to sell their businesses and families being forced to sell their farms to pay the dreaded estate tax. For example, representatives of the Mars candy family paid the Washington D.C. firm of Patton Boggs $640,000 in 1997, $700,000 in 1998, $620,000 in 1999 and $720,000 in 2000 to lobby congressional leaders on estate tax repeal (Gates and Collins, 2004, p. 60). Other major backers of repeal include the families of Gallo wine, L.L. Bean and Campbell Soup. Frank Blethen, fourth-generation publisher of the Seattle Times and owner of several other newspapers, organized hundreds of independent newspapers to run editorials and ads advocating repeal. The ads could be downloaded from the death tax website (www.deathtax.com) that was staffed by the Seattle Times.
The reality of the family farm argument? Iowa State University economist Neil Harl searched far and wide for thirty years and could not find one case where a farm was lost to estate taxes. Other reporters asked Iowa farmers about how many farms were lost to the estate tax and were met with “leg-slapping laughter” (Johnston, 2003, p. 74). Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Cay Johnston of the New York Times recounted that both the White House and the pro-repeal American Farm Bureau Federation were asked to provide information on farms lost to estate taxes. The result? “They could not produce a single example” (Gates and Collins, 2004, p. 69).
...Recent empirical studies have confirmed the productivity argument. In The Millionaire Next Door, researchers Thomas Stanley and William Danko conclude that lifetime and testamentary family gifts are both a disincentive to work as well as a disincentive to save. Their findings show that the more dollars adult children receive, the fewer they accumulate, while those who are given fewer dollars accumulate more.
Furthermore they find that the giving of such gifts (which the authors call “economic outpatient care&rdquo😉 is the single most significant factor that explains the lack of productivity among the adult children of the affluent (Stanley and Danko, 1996, pp. 141 ff.). Specifically they find that:
1. Giving precipitates more consumption than saving and investing.
2. Gift receivers in general never fully distinguish between their wealth and the
wealth of their gift-giving parents.
3. Gift receivers are significantly more dependent on credit than are
nonreceivers.
4. Receivers of gifts invest much less money than do nonreceivers.
IS UNLIMITED INHERITANCE UN-AMERICAN?
by Jim Grote
NAEPC Journal of Estate and Tax Planning
September 2007
http://www.estatesettlement.com/unlimitedweath.pdf