Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
Taxes are bad any way you cut it. Taxing income, in my mind, is worse than taxing death.
But in any event, when you tax you try and do the least damage to the economy that you can. If the choice is between taxing an estate (or death as you would say) or taxing income, I would choose the estate tax.
The death tax, I don't believe, discourages anyone from being more productive. And it also encourages people to give their inheritance to charity instead of underserving offspring (like me).
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dissent, human nature being what it is, the death tax creates all sorts of misincentives in the system for people to shelter their wealth and create "tax free" transfers on or after death. The only beneficiaries are tax lawyers and accountants, both of which, as overall groups, are drags and leaches on productive society. Further, my simplistic understanding is that tax policy does not have a huge affect on charitable giving. It certainly wouldnt drive mine. To the extent that I have to pay lawyers and accountants to sheild my wealth from the oppressive bureacracies, that money comes out of the charitable orgs allocations, not my kids. I am no Buffett,. and wouldn't want to be.
If you want to create incentive, create some general incentives for investment and savings as opposed to immediate consumption.
Just say no to the death tax!
