General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The "Death Tax" con job [View all]csziggy
(34,179 posts)I'm not sure of the amounts but they are substantial.
With planning a large amount can be transferred from parents to children or even to unrelated individuals. Most family businesses could take advantage of those gifts to pretty much eliminate estate taxes in the long run by transferring ownership of the business and its assets to the children of the owners. Of course, when the patriarch is a SOB who refuses to divest ahead of time or make the most of his legal gifts, the government can take a bigger chuck.
Even when there are millions or billions, a lot can be done to transfer wealth to avoid taxes. But it mostly involves paying lawyers, accountants, and tax specialists to create the structures to do that - trusts, corporations, etc. - and those tie up the money so it can't be as freely spent as it might otherwise be. The money paid to those professionals to create those structures might end up costing more than the taxes that would have been paid - but those costs are often deductible, so they still come out ahead.