strib: The bogus case against estate taxes

[question everything]

Editorial: The bogus case against estate taxes

6/4/06

This week, for the sixth time in eight years, the U.S. Senate will consider a bill
to repeal the federal estate tax. Advocates have come to understand that they
cannot win this argument on grounds of fairness (repeal would benefit only the
wealthiest one-half of 1 percent of American families), or as fiscal stewardship
(another tax cut would only deepen the tide of red ink facing Washington).
Instead, they have devised a series of creative but dishonest tactics to
demonize the estate tax in ways that play on Americans' fundamental sense of
fairness. None of these arguments holds up under the slightest scrutiny, and
we trust that Sens. Mark Dayton and Norm Coleman won't fall for them. Here's
a sample:

• Call the estate tax "the death tax." But it's not a death tax; it's a tax on
extremely large inheritances. Of every 200 people who die in the United States
this year, only one will owe any estate tax. That's because Congress has
gradually raised the exemption so that estates of less than $2 million ($4
million for a couple) now pass tax-free.

• Invoke taxpayers who had to sell the family farm or family business to pay
their estate taxes. But the Congressional Budget Office studied this question
last year and found that, at current rates, only 123 farm families and 135 family
businesses would owe any estate tax in a typical year. When the New York
Times examined the issue recently, the American Farm Bureau Federation
could not name one family that had to sell the farm to pay estate taxes.

• Rail against "double taxation" -- you pay taxes once on your earnings and
again on your estate. But a 2001 study by economists James Poterba and
Scott Weisbenner found that one-third to one-half of the assets in large estates
derive from unrealized capital gains -- that is, stocks and other assets that have
grown over time without ever being taxed. Repealing the estate tax would give
very affluent families a tax break no one else gets -- to accumulate wealth with
no taxes whatsoever.

(snip)

http://www.startribune.com/561/v-print/story/470470.html

[baldguy]

1. Harry Mudd: Republican for Congress 2006

http://homepage.mac.com/jholbo/nutwork/images/Mudd,%20Harry.jpg

Because Everything He Says Is A Lie!

[papau]

2. Well said :-)

:-)

[JHH]

3. How many Democrats in the Senate have a estates of more than $2 million?

[question everything]

4. Too many, I am afraid

Running, and winning, is getting to be a rich man (and woman) game. Even local elections now invovle millions of dollars.

[freesqueeze]

5. Yes, Yes, we must cut

Cut the tax and then cut the budget for the poorest and weakest among us.....

CUT CUT CUT CUT (unless you're sending me money)

AAAAHHHHHHGHGHGHGHGHGHghghghg....