I've recently read that 85% of millionaires in the USA are first generation millionaires that started with little themselves and built their wealth slowly through careful planning and tightly controlling their spending habits. The book that I refer to in "The Millionaire Next Door" it's done by a couple of college professors and is the result of many years of survey and study about the subject. It has challenged a lot of my assumtions about wealth in the USA.

I'm not a millionaire and will probably never be one, but it seems odd based on this that the government should have the right to take $550,000 out of every million based on nothing more than you're rich so you can afford to lose it.

The estate tax kicks in when someone dies with $1 million in total worth.

Is it right to single out any group an take more than half of their stuff?

I've always been against the estate tax for this very reason. Although I didn't know that it was as high as 85%, I knew that many millionaires earned their money through good financial planning and responsibility. I don't see how a government can justify taking half of you earnings just because you had fiscal intelligence.

government = elected crooks for a fixed term

Nope.

Then again, it isn't right to single out any group and take any of their stuff.

That said, I find death taxes to be an affront to man's humanity towards man of an even worse degree than other forms of theft. Although morally indistinguishable, it reeks of rubbing salt into the wound to force families to sell the possessions of loved ones and go through endless forms to fill in for the government when they have just lost a loved one.

I know that I have never seen my father more unhappy than when he was dealing with his mother's estate, an excessively long and arduous process in the UK. We had had the funeral, but the law demanded that that couldn't be the last of the whole affair for him, because the government deems to have the right to plunder its dead citizens' possessions.

And unless there is a specific clause already in the legislation to inflate the allowance of $1 million, be warned that inflation will ensure that your children will likely pay the tax even though you aren't yourself particularly wealthy.

many of us know how expensive a death is, it becomes worse for wealthy people. they have to have, usually an expensive funeral, lawyers to go over the will, etc.

death is not cheap

If you truly examine what "$1 Million is total worth" means, it very often describes a small business. The total worth is the estates "real cash", value of the home and investments (401k, whatever) PLUS the value of the business. Too often a family works hard to build a business, and then because of these "death taxes" the business is sold off or forced to close in order to pay the taxes. The result? One less business and fewer jobs, as the government will never take that money collected and leverage it into employment as a small business does.

According to the SBA (Small Business Association, sba.gov) small business employs approximately 50% of US private sector employees, hire 40% of high tech workers and file **13** times the number of patents per employee than large firms. In other words, small business is the home of innovation in the US.

not to mention despite what people think 1million dollars is not that much money.

This is why government is bad. Now I need to make $1,000,000 and die this year.

aw the poor rich people who worked so hard....

they're dead. who gives a sh*t

if you're so in favor of working your way up and earning your money for yourself, why do you whine when the these rich people's spoiled kids are forced to do it too?

lol. 55% i agree is excessive but the tax itself is a very good idea.

@Thucy - how about the "rich person's" spouse? First off, 1 million isn't much. Second, that money has already been taxed and the government gotten their share. Any death tax is a double taxation. Third, it was set up to prevent people like the Vanderbilts from passing ti down generation after generation after generation. If we are going to have one, it should be set such that it doesn't kick in until the "great grandkids" would be the recipients. And finally, it should never *ever* apply to a living spouse.

"if you're so in favor of working your way up and earning your money for yourself, why do you whine when the these rich people's spoiled kids are forced to do it too?"

By this logic, should we also stand idly by if they're robbed? After all, it'll make them work their way up and earn for themselves, right?

@C-Man
"Now I need to make $1,000,000 and die this year. "

If we start a collection will you do the rest? ;-)

Thucy, of course, completely misses the point. He thinks it's ridiculous that a parent's offspring should inherit their hard-earned wealth, and instead thinks the STATE has some right to it...the state, which will then redistribute that wealth to *other people's* kids. DUHH!! Off course, many children *are* involved in a family business, either directly as an employee (who may then move that employment when the 55% taxes kill the business), or they children often go years without as their parent's struggle to make a business grow.

Cleary Thucy has never attempted to start a business, and has *zero* idea of the sacrifices people make.

the bottom line, though, is why should I not get to choose *who* will inherit my wealth? Why would anyone assume **the State** has first dibs? You may think the "spoiled children" don't deserve the money, but that certainly doesn't automatically mean the state does. it should be the person who made the money that decides!

But...it is interesting to read Thucy's post. "spoiled chiuldren", the "poor rich people", Clearly poor little thucy has a big chip on his shoulder because not enough people are lining his pockets with unearned money, and therefore nobody should benefit from other's wealth.

The final point that Thucy *completely* misses is that an estate worth $1,000,000 is *not* rich. You take a local farm, for example, which may have a value of a million, but that money is tied up in building, supplies, equipment, etc. which means when the 55% taxes kick in, the family farm gets devastated and has to sell off the very equipment necessary to run the farm in order to pay the taxes. The result? Monsanto or some other corporate farmer comes in and buys up the family farm.

How ironic (not really) that thucy is too much of a dumbass to realize that by taxing small business out of existence, you really prop up the large industrials and multi-nationals whom he *truly* hates. Moron...

*lose* employment, not *move* employment... in 1st paragraph

“they're dead. who gives a sh*t

if you're so in favor of working your way up and earning your money for yourself, why do you whine when the these rich people's spoiled kids are forced to do it too?”

It isn’t about letting the child have the money, it’s about respecting the rights of the person who has deceased?

As for your not giving “a shit” about the dead, some of us are rather more decent than to view a dead man’s property as a good source of plunder to fund our government.

Thucy must relate well to the grave robbers who stole Ebeneezer Scrooge's silver, linenes, and even his bedclothes because that is what an estate tax is,: a theft of a person's hard earned money just because " 'e isn't going to need them now, is 'e?"

Well, the fun part is, this entire arguement is based on bad data.

Estate tax applies to fortunes of 3.5 million for singles, 7 million for couples. There are a lot of deductions, as well.

In addition, no less a person than Warren Buffet thinks that estate taxes are an excellent idea... and he's probably more affected by them than any of us.

Warren buffet doestn give a shit about estate taxes take a couple billion sure he's still got a few more billion left

"this entire arguement is based on bad data"

Hardly. The moral objection applies whatever. Oh, and Warren Buffet is just plain wrong, and it comes from the fact that he thinks he owes a debt to everyone who allowed him to succeed, something which is complete BS

Yeah, the Warren Buffet argument is pretty weak. Anyway, how can you say it is fair that if I work hard my entire life and when I die I have say 10 million dollars and want to give MY money to my relatives but the government takes half of that and uses it however they please? If I have enough money I would rather just donate it all to charity than let the government use it for shitty government programs and useless laws that just waste money.

Yes, the government does nothing right at all. Totally useless.

Of course nobody likes paying taxes. But if you don't like taxes, I suggest you move someplace that doesn't have any. You know, like Somalia.


"This morning I was awakened by my alarm clock, powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service (of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) determined what the weather was going to be like (using satellites launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). I watched while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory. I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work, on the roads built by the local, state AND federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined and tested regularly by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop off the kids at public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals which again so not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence thanks to state and local building codes, fire marshal's inspections during government-overseen construction (and possibly since), and the vigilant watch of my city and county Fire Departments. I find my home has not been plundered of all of its valuables thanks to the cooperation of the city, county and state Police Department.

I then log on to the internet (which was developed by the Defense Research Projects Administration) and post on freerepublic.com and Fox News Forums about how government involvement in healthcare is SOCIALISM which is BAD because the government can't do anything right. "

@Jack Klein - what you did throughout the day and how the services were provided is all well and good. But an estate tax is tax on money that *has already been taxed*! You argument as fallacious, plain and simple.

@Draug - *great* point about the fact that this is double taxation!

+1 Draugnar. Anyway since I don't agree with most of the things you mentioned, of course I am not going to want my EARNED money to be spent on it. I think the FCC is useless, don't want the government essentially controlling businesses etc etc. Not all things the government does are bad, its just that the government doesn't exactly spend its money well.

Let me... put this is as simply as I can:

TAXATION IS NOT ROBBERY

Double taxation isn't anything new. Prove to me that just because money is taxed twice, that makes that tax inherently bad.

Just because you don't like to have to pay for the services that you receive doesn't mean that the fact that you have to pay is wrong or immoral.

True but taxation at a level of 55% is pretty much robbery