12 Comments

• 1. Maggie  |  June 9th, 2006 at 5:20 pm

  Please don’t forget to point out the famous Kennedy move of having *mother*’s will probated in Florida to avoid the Mass DOR from getting a cut.

• 2. EaBo Clipper  |  June 9th, 2006 at 5:47 pm

  What separates Kennedy and Mr. Heinz-Kerry from the small businessman, or the middle class family that built a nest egg, is a living trust. The two K’s don’t have to worry about the death tax because if they are smart, and most wealthy people are, they don’t personally own much. Their living trusts do.

  The death tax removes capital fromthe economy and is not only immoral it is counter-intuitive. I’m sure the special K’s are doing this “for the children”. Because as trust members their children are taken care of.

• 3. romablog  |  June 9th, 2006 at 7:07 pm

  If you have an estate of less than $2 million, you don’t pay a cent. In three years, that goes up to $3.5 million.

  The death tax hurts ‘average americans?’ The average American has a $2 million estate? In 2002, less than 3 percent of deceased adults had estates subject to the tax.

  I’m a big fan of factcheck> http://www.factcheck.org/article328m.html

• 4. Andy  |  June 9th, 2006 at 7:36 pm

  romablog, it has been a while since I’ve researched this issue, but the death tax does not simply apply to saved money. It also includes any property, business, etc. etc that the deceased owned. So, we’re not talking about millionaires with a whole bunch of money… Average people can however accumulate a “nest egg” of sorts from investments, property, and business that can be more than $2 million.

• 5. romablog  |  June 10th, 2006 at 12:06 am

  For sure, but we’ve created exclusions within the system for the type of average Americans that would build up a nest egg that large; eg. small business owners and farmers. Coupled with other exclusions for average Americans, such as certain retirement funds and whatnot, it results in the kind of 3% figures we see. What’s also important to remember is that it’s a heavily progressive tax, so even if an average American is able to put together $2 without exclusions, they only get taxed something like 1.6% or something amazingly low like that.

• 6. EaBo Clipper  |  June 10th, 2006 at 4:14 am

  The average american may not have a $2M estate, but they are getting closer, with things like 401K ’s and IRA’s many Americans are close to becoming millionaires.

  But the Death Tax hurts the Average American in other ways. The family business that must be sold or shut down to pay the tax, hurts the workers who have relied on that business. The capital sucked up by the government that could have expanded business is no longer there either. Plus its IMMORAL, taxes have been paid on that income and capital over the life of the person who accumulated it. Why should he/she have to give up half of it on death?

• 7. Scott Yaw  |  June 10th, 2006 at 9:06 am

  What did you expect Kerry and Kennedy to do? Exactly when did you ever see a liberal vote for tax cuts…in any form? They actually do think that your money is their money!

  The “Death Tax” is another example of double taxiation at best and outright theft imposed by the government at worst. I would really like to hear any of these liberals stand up and justify this tax. Why should the families pay more of their money to the federal government?

  TAKE NOTE - Make liberal politicians say “what they do stand for”. Once exposed, they have NO CHANCE of being elected.

• 8. Sjazz  |  June 10th, 2006 at 7:54 pm

  Folks,

  If you really want to have accurate info on the estate tax and the advantages both parties have provided the wealthy, check out “Perfectly Legal” by David Kay Johnson. He shows how even mediocre estate planning helps shelter the first 6 or 7 million of assets. Interestingly, the last time republicans wanted to get this tax reduced the top 1% of the nation, they said it was to help save family farms and other small businesses. Lo and behold researchers could not find any farms-not even one- that were sold to pay the estate tax. Rhetoric and reality part ways…

  As for immoral, for the last 70 years, many of the super rich who benefitted from the stability, energy, and freedom of the financial did not see this as immoral or unfair..they benefitted the most and the pay extra at the end to avoid the creation permanent aristocracy. there are a zillion other policies and results that scream “immoral” much more than this one.

• 9. romablog  |  June 11th, 2006 at 1:10 am

  factcheck on the ‘double tax:’
  “It is true that some portion of a taxable estate might be made up of cash that was taxed before, when it was earned as income. But many estates are made up of stocks, bonds, real estate or other holdings that have appreciated greatly in value over the lifetime of the person who owned them. The owner didn’t pay taxes on that profit during his or her lifetime because they weren’t sold and the profits weren’t turned into cash, or “realized.” Furthermore, heirs who inherit such appreciated assets won’t have to pay tax on that unrealized profit either. The estate tax is the only tax that applies to such unrealized capital gains.”

  Regardless, the only argument I can see against a reasonable double tax is an argument against all taxes. And if you’re against all taxes, then… well, hell, I don’t see how you can be in favor of democracy and be opposed to all taxation.

  “average american may not have a $2M estate, but they are getting closer, with things like 401K ’s and IRA’s many Americans are close to becoming millionaires”
  I’m don’t have any sort of degree in economics, but from what I’ve been looking at, it seems the opposite is true.
  From the graphs I’m catching at http://www.phschool.com/atschool/econ/data_updates.html, it seems that while prices and housing costs are going up, the income gap is widening and that median income, the kind of money that the average American makes, has been taking a hit for a couple of decades. And the most recent data they have (2003) shows that personal savings and all that jazz is actually not that significant anyways for most Americans- coming out at something like right under 4% ‘as a percentage of disposable income.’

  I aslo really liked the Century Foundation’s coverage on the issue. Some great graphs> http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=PB&pubid=384

  They also have some arguments against the concept that the tax hits family business hard and that it forces a business to close down.

• 10. Brian Kelly  |  June 11th, 2006 at 4:06 am

  The ESTATE tax kicks in at 2 million and goes to 3.5 million in three years, it does not hurt the “little guy”! It hurts George Bush’s rich friends…you know the ones that had an extra $273 million dollars laying around to pay for his campaign! How Republican, raise taxes on both middle and lower incomes, and lower them for thier wealthy benefactors! I’m proud of Ted Kennedy and John Kerry!

• 11. CaptiousNut  |  June 11th, 2006 at 8:18 pm

  Any excessive tax on the wealthy hurts average Americans. The rich move money offshore or hide it in things like land or expensive art, essentially taking it out of the economy. That means less capital and fewer jobs for average Americans.
  But why let economic realities ruin the class warfare arguments of dissembling socialists?

• 12. romablog  |  June 12th, 2006 at 8:18 am

  I don’t really see that. I mean, it just doesn’t happen. Sure, the rich find loopholes in the estate tax. But, hell, they find loopholes with every tax. They can afford too and usually the reason they are rich is because they understand things like loopholes and are going to take advantage of them. I know a couple that lives right around the block from. Horribly well-to-do. They’ve got a house in this town, the next one, and two more houses down at two different vacation spots off the shore. During the summer, they go to that fat island where Kerry spends his summers. Their kid is headed towards college and the first thing they do is hire a financial consultant for a few hundred. They tinker with their paychecks here and there and move their payments and few months and they end up getting something like $20K in financial aid. These are people who clearly don’t need that much aid, I mean, they shouldn’t be getting any aid. But there’s a loophole so, what the hell. And the situation with the estate tax doesn’t seem any different to me. I mean, it doesn’t seem like the rich are really pouring their money out into Barnett Newman or whatever and dealing a blow to the economy- it seems more like they’re grabbing at loopholes here and there at the same pace that they usually do. And the biggest problem isn’t really that they have loopholes- it’s that they can just ignore taxes a lot of the times. Look at the Fortune 500- each corporation on that list is supposed to pay something like 35% of their profits to taxes. The Atlantic did a survey of 82 companies on the list, and each one didn’t pay any taxes in either 2001, 2002, or 2003. 28 paid no taxes whatsoever over all three years. This stuff’s well documented , you can check it out for yourself> (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200604u/tax-cuts). It’s not like there’s going to be a tax audit or anything, though. It’s not like anyone is going to make these corporations pay dues. So, you know, stuff like throwing money onto banks in the Bahamas, that might be a silly thing that wannabe-millionaires take part in, but the real big guys don’t have to waste their time like that. They can just not pay taxes and go on. Banks in the Bahamas and Barnett Newman? No big thing.

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