Estate tax evil...
...this is a SIMPLE fact: The 'estate' tax is the most immoral, evil and ugly tax in existence now or ever in world history.
Imagine a family farm in say, oh, Laurel, Maryland for lack of a better example. Owned and operated by a family for generations. Let's call it, um, three, yeah, three generations.
Corn growing in the summer on rolling fields. Beautiful, majestic oak trees, some over 200 years old. Throw in a couple acres, ACRES, of daffodils that bloom every spring. A lake for ice skating in winter. Horses. Let's add a going concern. How about a...a greenhosue. Yeah, with, oh, 30 or 40 jobs. And to top it all off about a mile of road frontage edged with rose bushes.
Let's say the owner dies. Let's say he still owns it all instead of passing it down. Let's say that the entire estate is valued at several million dollars. Now, let's say the tax bill, the bill that comes ONLY when you DIE is, eh, call it 30%. The math works out to low 7 figures. The bill is due.
Now, let's say that this 'estate' while worth a good coin, how about it don't turn so good a cash profit every year? Makes payroll and other bills but there ain't much cash.
Now, where you suppose the money gonna come from?
By by farm. By by greenhosue. By by daffodils. By by oak trees. Hello Hechingers (at the time). Hello strip shopping. Hello restaurants. Hello town houses, single family and apartments.
Now, don't cry for the survivors here. Once the bulldozers were done, the family members had a piece of pie left. Nothing to sneeze at but would have far prefered to keep the farm but the business simply didn't generate the cash flow to support borrowing millions of dollars for tax money.
The estate tax has always been and always will be a mechanism to take large blocks of land from families who've had it for a long, long time and then develop it. Forced to sell to pay the taxes. Imagine.
Argue all you want about wether or not this is in the public good but understand it. It's happening to old folks in Montgomery County right now with property taxes tied to skyrocketing home values. People WILL have to sell their home because they can't afford the taxes. A home they may have bought for $10k 50 years ago with a few acres they planned to pass on to their kids or grandkids or at least spend the rest of their days.
You can have no sympathy for 'rich' folks if you like. I grew up on 250 acres exactly like the story about the place in Laurel and my dad brought home $150 a week from that greenhouse for most of my childhood. Yes he was fine after his dad died, as was his two sisters and his mom but the farm is gone. Maybe business could have been better but you don't just suddenly get a bill for over a million dollars and just write check.
We didn't have money. Never did. I wore fishheads and went to public schools. Go to the beach for two weeks every summer. It was a big deal when grandpa got a new Cadillac every 5 years. We had land and the government, our government made us sell it because the man who built it and paid taxes every step of the way, from his dad to his to mine...
Died.
The 'estate' tax is vulgar and evil and heartless.
And wrong.
Further, for those of you saying 'yeah but you got cash!' yes, that's true for the immediate family but what happens then? What if you don't put it somewhere smart? Maybe the market crashes? Put a price on my childhood that no one, NO ONE else will experience, ever again.
The point is you go from owning your HOME and all the stabiltiy that represents to selling, not of your own choice, and entering risk. Ask a Democrat. They'll tell you in a heart beat that the market is risky and guarantees nothing if you're talking about Social Security.
What about 'rich' people? Rich in land. Estates are based on market value, not what you can afford, not what you got in the bank.
Again, don't cry for me. Just think about it a little bit. It could be about you and a lot easier than you might think.
It is sick to discuss how few people this does or does not affect in a land where the benchmark is justice for all. How about a little slavery? It's just a few people.
:spit:
