There is something appealing to the idea of taxing all inherited wealth at the same rate. But it's also eliminating a tax break that has long applied only to the middle classes. Sure, Paris gets the same break, but it's insignificant percentage wise.

And Burger: philanthropically, do you think that the repeal of the estate tax entirely will help or hurt the philathropy rate among the upper class, given that charitable donations will no longer be given favorable (estate) tax treatment? I'm thinking hurt, on average.

re:
 

Is this like tomcatting?

I suspect it will change the pattern, but I'm not sure it will necessarily hurt in the long run.

first off, people give to charity first and foremost because they believe in the cause. No tax break is going to let you give to charity without giving up some of your own (or heirs) money.

Second, if the stepped-up basis disappears, that will create an incentive for charitable giving. If you give an appreciated asset, you get to deduct the full value, but the charity doesn't have to pay the k-gains tax. So while you would (under current law) avoid 15% tax instead of 50%, you still avoid some. What's more, you'll have that incentive througout your life, rather than only upon death.

So, at bottom, I suspect the change will affect more the timing of gifts than the amount (i.e., on a stream, rather than only at death).

Finally, I'm not sure tax policy should be justified by the effect on charity. Any charitable deduction is inherently a subsidy from the government. So, even if a change to the estate tax causes charitable giving to decline, it could still fairly be argued that the decline is from a too-high level.

Right now, property that passes at death gets a stepped up basis. Those 10,000 shares of IBM stock that Gramps bought at $5 back in 1962, they now have a basis equal to whatever the close waa on IBM on the day Gramps dies. With the loss of a basis step-up, the stock keeps its $5 basis. So, when you go to sell the stock to pay for a nursery for Sebby, Jr., you get taxed on a $100/share capital gain.

Does that clear it up?

Your money's not better than my money
 

1. Bullshit. If people get cahs on the buyout of their interest in a business, its cash boot, taxed as capital gain.

2. Tough. The tax break on dividends is less than five years old and was grossly unfair when it was passed.

3. If they want out of a business, and they're ging to make a good profit on the sale, people will still sell their businesses. If they don't because 15% (or even 35%) of the gain is going to go to pay taxes, then they should be assessed an idiot tax.

re:
 

Yeah, but he only steps out with lawyers.

What percentage of charitable giving (globally) is in the form of appreciated assets, as opposed to cold hard cash or even depreciated assets (i.e., Hank's dad's car that he's thinking of giving to the Red Cross so that he can plant something else in the front yard and get the neighbors off his back)?

I would guess that a substantial percentage of the larger gifts do, in fact, involve appreciated assets.

What you'd need are data on the amount of charitable giving per person (i.e., how much came from gifts of <$100, $100-500, 500-1000, >1000, etc.) I would guess that most gifts in the range over a few thousand dollars involve appreciated assets. It's only sensible. And I would guess that a substantial percentage of charitable giving is concentrated in gifts of large amounts, simply because a large gift is generally more than hundreds of small gifts.

Well, yes I agree that would make sense to do it that way, if one were a corporation. But I get solicitations all the time and I'm no corporation, and mostly I hand out cold hard ducats. It feels like you're correct, but I was curious about a source to confirm it.

No, I get it. But why is that step up fiddling tied to the estate tax repeal? Why aren't they just repealing the tax, like they're advertising? Who inserted these provisions fucking with the step up?

The people who realized it had zero chance if they didn't.

Why would you think there should be a step up in basis when ownership moves because of death? Unless you are saying that when the estate tax is repealed, all capital gains taxes should be repealed, in which case the whole basis issue is moot. Uh, except I think basis has to do with depreciation, but I don't think that's relevant here.

There's a decent argument for stepped up basis of administrative simplicity. Establishing the cost basis of your own holdings (i'm talking stocks, houses, etc., not companies) is difficult enough when they're your assets. Much more challenging when they're your parents, who probably kept shitty records.

That said, there's no good reason to allow assets transferred at death to escape taxation altogether.

Well, yes I agree that would make sense to do it that way, if one were a corporation. But I get solicitations all the time and I'm no corporation, and mostly I hand out cold hard ducats. It feels like you're correct, but I was curious about a source to confirm it.

then why the fuck not pay your debt to the board?

Because they'd never get it through Congress without eliminating the basis step-up. Nor should they.

Why wouldn't that go thru congress? Indulge me here. I'm baffled as to why repeal wouldn't pass without eliminating the basis step up.

What would happen if we just eliminated the estate tax. No caveats, no extra provisions - just a repeal.

Who does the step up elimination placate? Is it a way to create tax revenue to make up for that lost as a result of the repeal?

You're not old enough. My university hits up the geezers for gifts of stock pretty hard, because the university won't have to pay the tax that an individual will. My grand uncle (rest in peace) gave a sizable amount of stock in a large car manufacturer that he had accumulated via a profit sharing plan to his alma mater instead of cash for that reason.

It placates me for one. I can't believe you're even suggesting that there is even one iota of equity in imposing a full tax burden of wage-earners while giving those fortunate enough to inherit wealth a free ride.

I'm baffled that you can't grasp this.

you're really pushing this "Max moratorium" shit.

I hate everyone
 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/...age/index.html

Gay marriage ban-

• "I don't believe there's any issue that's more important than this one," said Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican. "I think this debate is very healthy, and it's winning a lot of hearts and minds. I think we're going to show real progress."

How can anyone other than the most extreme not be repulsed by this type statement? I understand that 60% or so of the voters are anti-gay on marriage, but the most important issue?

What is most absurd is that if there was a chance it could pass i bet the Rs wouldn't push it- that would prevent them from running a state ban in any battleground states in the future

I hate everyone
 

2.

The most important issue facing the country today is not gay marriage, but flag-burning. Thankfully, the Bush Administration and its Wahhabi Republican supporters are going to tackle that crucial issue next.

Runaway deficits, immigration, and the growing pile of bodies in Iraq come, respectively, in 15th, 27th, and 45th place, in order of importance. (The Iraq thing is just behind tax cuts for pest control companies, aka the Trent Lott Memorial Patriotic Pest Control Act.)

What, like you lasted more than one day, anyway?

Sorry, Spanky
 

It seems that Spanky is to politics what str8 is to sports betting.

Sorry, Spanky
 

Not true. He did win in CA-50.

Now all he has to do is find a nice home for the Bilbray family in the district, and he can move on.

I'm sorry - what are you talking about?

Sorry, Spanky
 

All is forgiven. Spanky will embrace Pombo now.

Sorry, Spanky
 

Does this mean poker season is back on?

Sorry, Spanky
 

You bet your sweet bippy. The kid is a free man. I will actually be in town for most of the summer.

Sorry, Spanky
 

Welcome back, stranger.

In yo' face, McCain
 

So what happens if you feel that your signing statement to the McCain Amendment (which, you may recall, required that US Military adhere to the standards of the US Army Field Manual) might be inadequate? Well, you change the friggin' manual. Duh.

• The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards...
  ...The detainee directive was due to be released in late April along with the Army Field Manual on interrogation. But objections from several senators on other Field Manual issues forced a delay. The senators objected to provisions allowing harsher interrogation techniques for those considered unlawful combatants, such as suspected terrorists, as opposed to traditional prisoners of war.
  
  The lawmakers say that differing standards of treatment allowed by the Field Manual would violate a broadly supported anti-torture measure advanced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). McCain last year pushed Congress to ban torture and cruel treatment and to establish the Army Field Manual as the standard for treatment of all detainees. Despite administration opposition, the measure passed and became law.
  
  For decades, it had been the official policy of the U.S. military to follow the minimum standards for treating all detainees as laid out in the Geneva Convention. But, in 2002, Bush suspended portions of the Geneva Convention for captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Bush's order superseded military policy at the time, touching off a wide debate over U.S. obligations under the Geneva accord, a debate that intensified after reports of detainee abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
  
  Among the directives being rewritten following Bush's 2002 order is one governing U.S. detention operations. Military lawyers and other defense officials wanted the redrawn version of the document known as DoD Directive 2310, to again embrace Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.
  
  That provision — known as a "common" article because it is part of each of the four Geneva pacts approved in 1949 — bans torture and cruel treatment. Unlike other Geneva provisions, Article 3 covers all detainees — whether they are held as unlawful combatants or traditional prisoners of war. The protections for detainees in Article 3 go beyond the McCain amendment by specifically prohibiting humiliation, treatment that falls short of cruelty or torture.
  
  The move to restore U.S. adherence to Article 3 was opposed by officials from Vice President Dick Cheney's office and by the Pentagon's intelligence arm, government sources said. David S. Addington, Cheney's chief of staff, and Stephen A. Cambone, Defense undersecretary for intelligence, said it would restrict the United States' ability to question detainees.
  
  The Pentagon tried to satisfy some of the military lawyers' concerns by including some protections of Article 3 in the new policy, most notably a ban on inhumane treatment, but refused to embrace the actual Geneva standard in the directive it planned to issue.
  
  The military lawyers, known as judge advocates general, or JAGs, have concluded that they will have to wait for a new administration before mounting another push to link Pentagon policy to the standards of Geneva.

Geez. I can't believe McCain let THAT one slip by.

Gattigap

I hate everyone
 

I hate everyone
 

I thought it was Tom DeLay who built his fortune on the bloody carcasses of our invertibrate breathern.

Free the Orkin 7,000,000,000!

I hate everyone
 

Damn, you're right..... My bad.

"Tax Dollars Being Sucked Up a Hog's Butt."
 

Friends,

I learned tonight that my cousin is running for the State House of Representatives for the Great State of South Carolina.

The incumbent for this particular district is retiring, and the vacuum created by his absence is generating interest from any number of interesting characters. Including, as it appears, my cousin.

I never would've thought my cousin to be political material, as I've never seen him as the backslapping type. But let me just say that I give him large, brass, Stephen Colbert-style balls for the way he's conducted his campaign.

He has declared that he's accepting no donations at all. In a recent article by the hometown paper on the various candidates, my cousin was quoted as saying "I'm getting tired of having my tax dollars being sucked up by a hog's butt each and every time I turn around."

And that's not an offhand comment made to a reporter. This is from the man's stump speech.

With political instincts this strong, I sense something in the air, and it ain't just the aroma of livestock. I feel a Malcolm Gladwell tipping point approaching, and it's the mover's and shakers on this here board that can make it happen.

Sure, my cousin isn't "accepting" donations, and the issue of receiving outside-the-state money seems to be taboo in this particular race. But, friends, with quotes like these simply BEGGING for bumper stickers and T-shirts, can't you just imagine the possibilities?

(C'mon, Spanky. He's running as a Democrat, but he's a South Carolina Democrat. Fucker will be to the right of Pombo on most issues. You'll raise money for him, right?)

Join me. Contribute to the newly-created Foreign Friends to Elect Richard '06 Fund, and we'll create the bumper stickers, buttons and logowear that will turn heads from SoHo to Toronto to Charlotte to San Francisco to Santa Monica.

Gattigap
Foreign Campaign Chairman

"Tax Dollars Being Sucked Up a Hog's Butt."
 

how old was your sis when she married your cousin?

zarkawi, rIp
 

Good day fro Bush and Anmerica.

But i doubt that the Liberals can be happy for us. I expect you guys here, Ironsped, gatti, Ty, Sidd, SPH (why not pay up?) actually are dismayed by this vicotory as much as they are enamored of freedomfigheters like zarqkwawi over U.S. Troops and much like they still defend Saddams' regime against the justification for war.

No good news for Dems, Everything is bad. Bush's fault and the republicans and the majority of Americas who voted fror him. If Hillary was the president who did this guy, she'd have Bill over there tooting his sax down the streets of Baghdad in front of the funeral procession with his fellow liberals showering him with rose petals.

Well, keep it up. When we win and the liberals balk, I think it energizes the conservative base in middle american to keep yuo traitors out of power in the country.

Dead livberal freedom fighter:

http://drudgereport.com/az.jpg

boohoohoo, haha.


http://www.tvdance.com/bush-gore/images/1anew.gif http://www.tvdance.com/bush-gore/images/1anew.gif http://www.tvdance.com/bush-gore/images/1anew.gif

zarkawi, rIp
 

how's NYC?

"Tax Dollars Being Sucked Up a Hog's Butt."
 

That's it? C'mon, I know that it's still early in Detroit, but stretch a bit, and let's get that swing loosened up.

zarkawi, rIp
 

bush made Zarqawi. Without bush, he'd have been another two-bit Baghdad thug who would have died unknown to the world in some unnamed centuries-old blood feud. I'm happy he's gone because he was an obstacle to stability in Iraq and a danger to our troops, but bush gets no points for moving in a general direction toward square one in Iraq. If outside counsel screws up, I don't yell "Hooray!" when they fix it.

I'll give bush credit for one thing - he correctly guessed his advisors were right when they said he shouldn't put up another "Mission Accomplished!" banner over the White House. Way to go!