Maybe There's Hope
 

The FCC is going to lose it all if it persists in the massive fines against broadcasters. Powell needs to worry not about expanding the scope of indecency regulation, but retaining any authority whatsoever. It boggles my mind as to why he'd push the issue to the front burner, given his desire to censor. Better to issue small fines, that companies won't challenge, and cause the nets to self-censor.

smoke & mirrors
 

This post has lots of large, legal-sounding words. What are you trying to pull here?

smoke & mirrors
 

Why should death be a taxation event at all? The kids will pay taxes on the gains in the pot anyway.

smoke & mirrors
 

Because you're getting a chunk of money that you didn't have before?

Why should I pay federal excise tax on booze? The money I pull out of my wallet to buy the fifth of Old Grandad has already been suject to the income tax.

Whether something like the estate tax is good public policy or not is one thing -- but calling it immoral is (sorry sebby -- I love you, but ...) just stoopid. It's money. (or a bond or a mansion -- whatever) Your mom wouldn't have it but for the government which created and protects property. She wouldn't have had the estate in Westchester when she kicked it but for the fact that some central authority prevented the Visigoths from burning and looting it.

smoke & mirrors
 

No, no, no they won't. They get a tax-free step-up in value. The gain isn't recognized.

smoke & mirrors
 

True, except that under the current estate tax repealer, it also repeals the step-up in basis. If death is irrelevant, then there's neither a realization event nor a step-up.

smoke & mirrors
 

It seems like we are all trying to make rational sense out of the irrational. I can gleam very few underlying principles in our current tax systems, except that it is a negotiated way to feed the beast.

smoke & mirrors
 

But, dude, I want that fucking money. What if I get lucky an my folks' silly investments blow up and they wind up with some major fat cash... I want that shit. I want to be retired early and naked on the beach. And I truly hope to pocket enough in my life to be able to hand over a pretty cushy existence to whatever kid I have. Ideally, I'd love it if I could make enough that the kid never had to work. Life's too short to work. think of how many endless hours we all waste, and we only go round this gig once. Once. I get 70 odd years if I'm lucky and half of them I'm stuck working? Shit, anything to spare my kids the horror of it all.

Being bored senseless and wasting one's hours for money is cruel and unusual. I blame my filthy useless Irish genes for giving me no skills but the ability to prevaricate and twist people's words. I should've been a plumber.

smoke & mirrors
 

Yeah, and note that Bush's/the Rs revenue forecasts for that tax package cut off at EXACTLY THE SAME TIME the estate tax repeal kicks in.

That is a side note. Under current law, there is a step-up in value and no recognition of any built-in gains, but you have the estate tax.

Under the new law, is there really neither realization nor recognition? I would think that they would have to realize the gain -- I mean, they *have* the stuff they inherited. They probably just don't have to recognize the gain until they re-transfer it. Which is kinda fucked up -- the ownership of the asset gets transferred, but it's not a recognition event. Must be nice. And quite, QUITE the incentive not to transfer whatever it is you inherited to someone who could use it better.

I tend to think it's not that bad that the current system encourages transfers (so that the inheritor can pay the taxes). Grandpa's been holding onto that land for no other reason than to avoid paying taxes on the gains, anyway.

smoke & mirrors
 

Read The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America (written by a lawyer). The "beast" is necessary because it creates work for us. What would all the lawyers, accts and consultants do if the beast didn't create busy work for them to sell? Perhaps something productive? Perhaps cure something? Why do that when you can dick around with arcane regs and contort procedure like me. What do I do? I'll tell you what I do. I play procedural games for disgusting business people who don't want to pay bills or want to gain strategic advantage in a deal. I steal from pigs for pigs. Great gig, huh? I feel better losing than I do winning most of the time. A pointless existence if ever one existed.

The only thing lower than me is the people who act as rule custodians in this mess - the useless bodies who remind me about procedure and their little rules, my rote knowledge of which makes my time chargeable at a pretty fat rate.

Manipulating idiotic rules and satisfying clerical minds and reg-custodians. Oh yeh, the beast is great. How many cures for AIDs have been lost because good minds decided to take the fast cash that comes from jockeying with the beast? Maybe Bush is right...

smoke & mirrors
 

If you would please, PLEASE acknowledge that in light of what Ty was saying -- he was not talking about a "this is how it is" but in a "this is how it ought to be, logically, because the person no longer exists" -- your statement is incredibly stupid and misguided.

Or maybe you were making a funny?

smoke & mirrors
 

Don't sell yourself short. I'm sure you can drink like a fish as well.

smoke & mirrors
 

They took away the step-up in basis to compensate for no estate tax. Otherwise there's a double benefit--not only do you get the asset tax free, but you don't have to pay tax on accrued gains. This makes some sense, so that people don't artificially hold onto assets. One othe rpossibility is death is a realization event, and the estate has to pay all taxes. But everything after cap gains taxes goes to heirs, with no additional estate tax.

Anyway, I'm surprised our urbane sebby is in cahoots with the red-state farmers who think that repeal of the death tax is the most important thing since sliced bread, 'cuz when daddy leaves the two mules and the big red barn, they don' want no guvment taking one of 'em mules.

smoke & mirrors
 

club, please settle a bet: was the above a typo?

smoke & mirrors
 

Sweet pea, seriously, I understand the new tax system. Of all people.

I was drawing the distinction between realization and recognition, which you seem to be using interchangably. It's not that important, but you might want to explore the differences when you get a minute if you are going to talk about tax policy.