Quote:
Originally posted by taxwonk
1. We've had this argument on the board before. The right to property is not organic. It derives from the state, and the state has always exacted an excise on its transfer to the next generation. There's nothig socialist about my position. It finds its roots in the English common law as well as the Roman civil law. You can't take it with you when you go, and without the sanction of the state, you can't exercise dominion over it from thee grave either. I gave both a moral and a logical basis for an estate tax. You gave neither in support of its repeal.
2. I guess we just disagree.
3. What about it is hyperbole? You have suggested that there should be no estate tax and that the basis stepup at death should be retained. What that means is that any property a person holds at death can pass tax-free to another person, and that heir can sell the property the same day without paying a tax on the built-in gain. Do you really think that would not create a huge reduction in tax revenues? Where would the government look to make up that shortfall if they can't tax estates and they can't tax the built-in gain on inherited property? They wouldn't make it up by taxing capital gains. Nobody would ever realize a capital gain if they could hold assets until their death and allow the gain pass tax-free. There is no source other than earned income from which to recoup the lost revenue.
4. Your statement here belies your whole prior argument. If consumption creates jobs and growth in the same way as investment, then there is no defensible reason to favor investment in making tax policy. The only motivavtion left is the fact that you believe you will inherit wealth some day or you believe you will accumulate wealth to pass on to your heirs and you don't care who gets taxed, or how much of a burden it is on them, as long as you can escape the burden. At least here, I have to give you credit for your candor, even if it may have been uninitentional.
5. Our tax system is progressive and always has been. We designed it that way from the start. Calling someone a socialist because they believe that the system should remain progressive only proves that you understand neither tax policy nor socialism.
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1. You couched this in terms of moral imperatives, then use English common law as the supporting authority? God Save the Queen, indeed. English common law ain't the fount of all morality. My logical basis is simple - its your family's money. Families have rights to keep property within them. Its a ludicrous liberal's fantasy that we all live as one unified family, and Mother Government beneficially oversees property rights for us.
2. Agreed.
3. That argument presumes that the money being transferred to the heir has not yet been taxed. It has. I think you should be able to transfer whatever you like between family members tax free. The law should allow that, so families can take care of themselves. If you allow families to keep swaths of money in their coffers, those are families who won't be hitting up the govt for benefits. But we can't try leaving money in private hands, can we? No, that cheats Mother Govt out of her bridge toll, and all the people who demand wealth redistribution out of their handouts.
4. Nonsense. If you get a big lump of change, you can buy all sorts of kooky consumer goods - helping the economy - while not even touching principal. The govt, OTOH, squanders all of it, and quickly. You can't make any coherent economic argument for giving money that would be spent in the private sector to the govt.
5. You're "institutionalized." You've been reading too many books on tax for too long and are beginning to think that the tax system (which has not always been as progressive as it is today) is carved in stone, handed to us by God himself. Nonsense. That a thing's been done wrong and badly for a while doesn't mean changing it is heresy or an inherently unsound proposition. You're wearing blinders on this issue because you're too close to it too often. You sound like me when I cross examine my wife. I rip her points to ribbons when we argue, and then she just looks at me and says "Stop fucking lawyering me. In the real world, you know I'm right."
Its ok. Most lawyers are fucking deluded. We're so twisted up in the belief that what we're involved in is the perfect logical system, and that its RIGHT, that we don't even realize how fucking blind we are.
