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Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I'm confused. OK. I get how this is a gift to the rich. The rich get less taxes.
But how is everybody else getting screwed? Are you saying we have an entitlement to the rich's money?
I don't like Paris Hilton, and I think she's a terrible example of money being wasted by a fool, but I'm not entitled to any of her money. That she'll be giving less up in estate taxes isn't "screwing" my issue. How or why are my kids entitled to any of her money?
The rich are getting a benefit, but neither you nor I are getting "screwed" because of it. The money rich won't be paying inestate taxes isn't money we'd otherwise not pay in taxes. If the estate taxes were raised, my taxes would stay the same. Government isn't in the business of effectively spending tax revenue. The only people losing on estate tax repeal are people who make their living in or off the govt, because now the govt has less to spend on them.
I'd rather Paris have a gold plated Bentley than see the govt waste the money. At least she'll spend the moneyin some way that it will create revenue for an independent businessman, rather than go to a govt worker or some company leeching wasteful govt contracts for senseless shite like Ted Stevens' bridge to nowehere or some Democratic program to house all the Katrina victims in Idaho.
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I'm saying that 97% ofr Americans are better off with an estate tax that has a unified credit amount fo say, $15-20M and a basis step-up at death.
The only people who do better under the repeal of the estate tax and elimination of the basis step-up are people who own controlling blocks of stock in corporations that they will never sell, because they can control the flow of dividends to meet their cash flow needs. Think Rockefeller, Texas Union or whoever owns the King Ranch stock, John KLuge, and that lot.
Everybody else gets fucked. If there were maybe ten families who had to sell off their business because Daddy fucked up his estate planning, there will now be millions of taaxpayers who get taxed because they want to sell the farm or the vacation house in Maine.
