FUCK!
Originally Posted by Chung Tran
The local newspapers published the names of the accused and some joker was selling T shirts with all 60 names emblazoned on the front. Marriages and careers were destroyed. The main lesson from this experience is never, ever give a provider or her pimp your personal info. The massage parlor kept a list of clients doing outcalls and local law enforcement got hold of it.
I'll try to be as brief as possible.. the 40% is a marginal rate, the last few dollars, not an average rate.
Originally Posted by Chung Tran
True but very misleading. If a person has a billion dollar estate, then close to 99% of it (the amount over $11 million) is taxed at 40%.
the purpose of the gift and inheritance tax is to prevent hoarding of un-taxed cash simply passed from one wealthy generation to the next. ad in the generation-skipping tax here as well.
Originally Posted by Chung Tran
It's not hoarded. It's invested in companies, farms, and bonds and savings that are loaned out to government, businesses and individuals. Furthermore, in the majority of cases the money was already taxed as income. There are some instances where you've got a point. For example, if Jeff Bezos dies tomorrow, the income tax (but not the sales and property taxes) paid by Amazon would be inconsequential during his lifetime compared to the value of his stock. And if his heirs sold the stock the day after he died, they'd pay no capital gains tax because the cost basis of the shares is stepped up to market value on the date of his death. Recent proposals by Republicans to do away with the estate tax would handle this by not stepping up cost basis for larger estates.
it is not a "punishment", it is designed to put money to use, growing the economy and jobs.
Originally Posted by Chung Tran
This statement is ass backwards. Again, see the Tax Foundation link. The economy and jobs benefit more from leaving the "money" invested in businesses and savings rather than turning it over to the government. It absolutely is punishment. Why else would you impose a tax that doesn't raise net revenues? The Tax Foundation's research indicates, in the long term, the government loses revenues because of the estate tax. No reasonable person who's looked at this closely would argue that it raises significant revenue.
the gift tax and inheritance tax are related. you can give $15,000 to one person each year, no consequence, but if you give, say, $16,000, that extra thousand subtracts from the $11.4 million you can shield from tax when you die.. so unless you draw that excess via gifting below the $11.4 million, no tax is due from anybody.
Originally Posted by Chung Tran
All true but I still don't understand what you're getting at.
the right-leaning Media wants to sell ads, so they print a bogus MarketWatch story, like that I linked. in reality, 1/10 of 1% of people will be affected by the points in the article.
Originally Posted by Chung Tran
So say somebody in some town goes out with a gun and robs 1/10 of 1% of the population, then takes the cash he got and burns it and gets thrown in jail for a couple of weeks. That's what's happening. The effect on the economy, and, with dynamic scoring on government revenues, is negative.
Yeah, there's a problem with inequality in America. How about implementing policies that would grow the pie for everyone, more for the poor and middle class than the wealthy. That beats making everyone worse off by shrinking the size of the pie, in a way where everyone receives less. This is what the estate tax does.