I didn’t say anyone was lazy or undeserving. Nor did I say anyone should be “fucked”. What I said, which is a fact, is when you inherit money you didn’t earn it through work. If you inherit $1 million dollars by doing nothing, and the guy next door earns $1 million over several decades through hard work, what justification is there for him to pay tax on his earnings and for you not to pay tax on yours?
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Scenario #1: I earn $100 through work, and it is taxed. I pay someone $100 to mow my lawn a few times. That $100 is taxed again.
Scenario #2: I earn $100 through work, and it is taxed. I die, and one of my heirs gets the $100 for doing nothing.
Why should the income be taxed in scenario #1 but not scenario #2? Why would taxing the $100 inheritance in scenario #2 be “taxing it twice” but taxing the lawn-mower’s income in scenario #1 not be “taxing it twice”?
If you make income, it should be taxed, regardless if it’s income earned through work or inherited. Indeed, to tax people who make their money through work, while letting off the people get money without working, is unjust.
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Did you pay taxes for all the birthday gifts your parents gave you?
The real question is why should you pay taxes for your gift?
Gift taxes kick in at $14,000 so unless CLP was gifted that much in any given year, there was no tax. Are you saying the inheritance tax should be changed to start at $14,000 instead of $5,000,000?
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There is a gift tax, payable by the donor (just as estate taxes are payable by the deceased’s estate, and not the recipient/inheritor). In fact, the threshold before the gift tax kicks in is much lower than the limit for the estate tax. The combination of gift and estate taxes is why estate planning can be important, as you can maximize your tax avoidance by giving annually when you reach the age where you are likely to die.
Taxes are also charged on forgiven loans, since the represent income. Just say I loan you $100. You don’t pay it back, so I forgive the loan. Because you now have $100 that you don’t have to repay, this is essentially $100 in income towards you, and by the letter of the law you have to pay income tax on it.
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Death taxes are not just a problem in the US. Two anecdotes from here in Japan:
- My mother in law died in 2013. Our accountant informed us we can get a 20 year “loan” from the govt to pay the death tax. We’re also told that the easiest thing to do might be to sell the house where my wife was born thats been in the family for over 150 years.
- A friend of mine who is in his 80s recently became homeless because the place he was renting had to be sold to cover the death tax when the owners died and the daughter had to sell the family property to cover the tax bill.
You can wave around accusations of wealth as though it were a dirty word all day long but the truth is that in any country, death taxes affect regular families negatively.
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The kindness of your words touches my heart as does your talent for clarifying the meaning of my statement.
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I don’t think you should tie the poverty in a couple of reservations, which is a complex issue on its own and one which the State of South Dakota has little control, to estate and trust taxes.
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Why not tax all gifts? It seems to fit into CLP’s argument.
So the solution is to apply the tax to only those people that are the financially successful? Is that counter capitalism?
Anyway… I said earlier that I just don’t get it, my main problem is that it is a double dip. Just because there are other examples of double and triple dipping doesn’t sway me to believe that gift/inheritance tax is then justified. In fact, I would be in favor of abolishing income tax altogether and going to a spending tax system.
I’m actually surprised there is so much support for gift/inheritance tax here on BB.
Anecdotal evidence.
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I agree that there is nothing sinister about arranging your own affairs to minimize taxes. But there is a heck of a lot of sinister involved in arranging everyone else’s affairs to minimize your own taxes with corrupt legislation. Especially when one is accomplishing this with wealth and privilege that were obtained from rearranging everyone else’s affairs to pay taxes that you would otherwise owe.
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Carnegie?
Tried to enhance the fame and immortality of the oligarch just like monarchs making monuments? I imagine his workers would have enjoyed feeding their families and trying to build on their own success while they were alive… beats having to fight it out with Pinkertons…
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Neat stories. Why do I feel there’s much more to them than that…
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If you have questions I’ll be happy to answer to the best of my knowledge.
Sorry to hear about your parents. But this sounds like lack of planning. Trusts and asset transfers are how to avoid the bulk of this, and other strategies that cost far less than the loss in taxes.
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There is no reason to expect that money will not be taxed more than once. Unless you think that all your money magically appears in your bank account by the fruits of fairies living in a tax haven with no income or corporate taxes, to be spent in some black hole where it will never be used for anything that triggers taxes again. Or if you believe fox news.
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Not really, just think they’re useful anecdotal stories to back up an existing narrative about taxes.
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Wait a moment here, just wait. Are you trying to tell us that South Dakota is corrupt? Really? I think you mean the entire worlds governments are corrupt!
Consumption taxes are hugely regressive, while estate taxes help reduce inter-generational wealth transfers. To the extent that Boing Boing readership styles itself as progressive and egalitarian, the stance on these taxes is not surprising.
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They do? This thread alone makes it seem like only the poor planners are paying the tax.
Progressive? That’s what you call believing in a system that began in the 1700’s and is failing to stop people from easily and legally avoiding it in the first place? I’m still keeping an eye open for new suggestions!
