So, Congress is set to extend the estate tax that was set to expire soon. Doesn't that just gnaw at your sensibilities? Doesn't it just feel inappropriate?
What about dying, exactly, makes it a taxable event? Oh yeah, it's 'income' to whomever gets part of another person's estate. Worse, the person receiving it may not have done anything to earn it so why shouldn't government take HALF OF IT? After all, the government certainly earned it or otherwise deserves it. Actually, the government never 'owns' money it collects in taxes either but that's different, right? Oh, and since the government doesn't earn it but, rather, spends in on the rest of us that means the rest of Amercans who do get it did something to deserve taking it from people who earned it?
By the way, didn't the person who died already pay taxes on that estate ... on all that he earned? And in the case of estates that are most subject to the death tax, didn't he pay taxes at the rate of about 40% already? Question, when 40% of what a person earned has already gone to the government when he earned it, why should the government get 50% of what's left when he dies? Why wasn't it taxed enough already before he died? Hmmm. No, I agree. It's better to make 'rich people' even poorer. Take the money from 'rich people' who have a proven track record of creating jobs and building businesses and give to others in the form of welfare. It's fine that some job-creating economic machinery gets the axe. Welfare to strangers is much better than jobs they might use to make a living on their own.
Fact is, after a person dies his estate goes immediately into an 'ownership limbo' where, technically, no one 'owns' it. To say the estate 'deserves' to be taxed because it's going to people who didn't earn it ... that it's kinda like new income to others ... is a fake argument. Under that rationale it shouldn't be taxed until AFTER inheritors receive it so it is taxed as their income. Oh, but wait! If the government waited until AFTER it actually becomes someone's income, then it has to be taxed at that person's LOWER TAX RATE at which time the government cannot steal a whopping 50% of it! The only way the government can abscond with that much of it is when it's in that ownership limbo. I guess the argument is, since it doesn't really belong to anyone yet, it's automatically the right of government to do whatever it wants with it.
One last aspect worth considering. The next time government tells you a new tax they want you to approve will never increase or is temporary and will expire on a given date, seriously ... I mean really seriously ... consider whether it's more likely that the government will not only extend it but make it permanent and/or increase the tax. Based on actual history, it's MUCH more likely that our representatives are lying when they tell us a given tax is temporary or will never increase. If they'd be honest they'd admit they have no real commitment to do what they're PROMISING(!) you. Liars and weasels, all of them. Seems to be in the job description, eh?
Not much about government can be counted on any more. Promises certainly mean nothing. But these CAN be counted on: A temporary tax WILL become permanent ... always. The lifting or reduction of a tax will NEVER be permanent.
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