RE: [Dems2008] Re: Why Obama

• The estate tax is just another revenue source for the govt; and so the question is not whether the revenue should be collected from us, but from whom and via which vehicle should it be collected.   In my view (and these are policy questions on which we can all differ) I would rather take a dollar of tax from a dead guy's estate (before the balance passes as a pure windfall to a child or others) than I would take that dollar from a working person trying to raise and educate his or her children.  So the estate tax (which hits a very small percentage of folks in this country) is a better more preferred source (in my view) than the same dollar coming via the income tax.

Why should a dollar of a dead man's estate go to the government.  He worked hard for that money during his life and he has the right to see that it goes to where he wants, be it to his descendents, per stirpes, a favorite charity, or wherever.  The government taxes him during his lifetime on that income and then wants to tax him one last time so not all he wants to give will get to his desired beneficiaries.  Not very fair.
 

• second, the step-up in asset basis is  always ignored in these discussions:   if I buy a house for 100K and it's worth $2 million when I die, my devisee takes the date of death fair market value as a stepped up basis.  Seems only fair that since ASSETS (not cash) are the bulk of the estate of a person subject to estate tax, a fair tradeoff for the windfall from the basis step-up is to tax that asset at death.  The earner is DEAD; the legatee or devisee is a windfall beneficiary.

So the beneficiary should have to pay out the trust or the property a tax equivelant to the difference between the original cost of the home and the increased market value?  We really need more equitable financial intake than that since the beneficiaries  or the new residents of that home are still greiving over the deceased.  and you would stick them with another financial burden.  Sometimes the home is the only thing of material growth in a trust and there are no other real assets.  where is the equity there.   let us not tax each other to death after death.

Ed

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To: Dems2008@yahoogroups.com
From: citation502@yahoo.com
Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 02:14:54 +0000
Subject: [Dems2008] Re: Why Obama

Carol, there is a lot of demgaguery about the federal estate tax, and  its repeal is sold to folks with less than the full truth of the matter.

• The estate tax is just another revenue source for the govt; and so the question is not whether the revenue should be collected from us, but from whom and via which vehicle should it be collected.   In my view (and these are policy questions on which we can all differ) I would rather take a dollar of tax from a dead guy's estate (before the balance passes as a pure windfall to a child or others) than I would take that dollar from a working person trying to raise and educate his or her children.  So the estate tax (which hits a very small percentage of folks in this country) is a better more preferred source (in my view) than the same dollar coming via the income tax
• second, the step-up in asset basis is  always ignored in these discussions:   if I buy a house for 100K and it's worth $2 million when I die, my devisee takes the date of death fair market value as a stepped up basis.  Seems only fair that since ASSETS (not cash) are the bulk of the estate of a person subject to estate tax, a fair tradeoff for the windfall from the basis step-up is to tax that asset at death.  The earner is DEAD; the legatee or devisee is a windfall beneficiary.

--- In Dems2008@yahoogroups.com, Carol Roberts <carolroberts1@...> wrote:
>
> Wow, I mostly agree with your positions on things, except for the estate
> tax. It taxes after-tax money. I know the threshold has been set very
> high, but I remember the days when I represented widows who had to sell
> their houses in order to pay the estate tax. I don't care that the
> people who now pay estate tax have several houses, its not right.
>
> Carol
>
> citation502 wrote:
> >
> >
> * I support huge tax cuts for those earnings less than 100K, and a
> > repeal of the suspension of the estate tax
>

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