Let em expire!

[Woapalanne]

Sorry, Beavah, but a number on a county tax assessor's computer is NOT an income producing asset and there's no way you can make it so. The garage and other facilities I referenced are NOT valid numbers to calculate income from. Absolutely not, and no accountant will attempt realistically to make it so. The REAL assets are quite different. they are NOT producing 2% income, but more like 20%.

[Woapalanne]

I do agree with your last post, Bevah.

[JoeBob]

We're number ONE!

 

Japan just announced a 5% reduction in their corporate income tax rate. They're trying to stimulate the sluggish Japanese economy.

 

That makes the US corporate tax rate the highest in the developed world! YAHOO?!

 

How many businesses are going to race to set-up operations in the US so that they can pay the number one highest tax rate!

 

How many other businesses are going to quietly shift their operations out of the country?

 

How many good-paying jobs are provided by poor men?

 

[GernBlansten]

Do you happen to know how much corporate income tax Exxon/Mobile paid last year?

[OldGreyEagle]

Gern, whatever Exxon/Mobile paid in income tax is irrelevant, it all came from it's customer's anyway, along with whatever was paid by Ford, Wal-Mart, or any other Corporation. We, the consumers, pay the taxes for corporations just as wellas we contribute to their profit or loss

[Beavah]

Yah, corporate income tax is just an indirect consumption/sales tax.

 

Hits da small businesses worst, because they don't have the higher-end tax help nor the ability to try to select the most advantageous venue for production (which state, which zone, onshore or offshore, etc.).

 

B

[Woapalanne]

News reporter said today that Congress was going to reduce the Estate Tax (aka "Death Tax). More balderdash! How do you reduce below zero?

[GernBlansten]

More balderdash. The death tax is just stupid.

 

Its income tax. When you get money, that's income. Tax it at the rate you qualify for. Who gives a rat how you got it. You got it. Its income. Tax it as whether you got it from working your tail off at the car wash or if grandma took a dirt nap.

Being part of the lucky sperm club doesn't exempt you.

Its income to you, tax it for what it is.

[JoeBob]

Gern,

That's outrageous, even for you.

 

I've busted my hump for 35 years to build my business.

I've paid taxes every year. Lots of taxes.

If I'm able to continue successfully for another 15 years, before the eyes go bad, my business may be worth $5 million.

Both of my kids like working in the business. (They're too young to be paid or to be serious help. My point is that in 15 years they would probably like to take over for me and ihherit what I've built.)

 

If the Democrats have their way, and put a 45% tax on estates, my kids will have to borrow $2,250,000 to pay the IRS for the priviledge of continuing to work in their daddy's business. (Or, as the feds know will happen, sell the business because no bank will loan young adults that kind of money.)

 

A business, which I must add, has already paid 60 cents in assorted taxes for every dollar I've earned for 35 or more years.

35% Fed

13% FICA that I'll ever see.

8% State

3% Unemployment Ins - so others can veg out for 99 weeks.

If you toss in sales taxes and Medicare, most small business owners are well over 60% already.

 

So, after allowing me to keep 40% of what I've earned with my sweat for over 35 years, now you want to take another 45% off the top?

 

'Luck sperm club' my rump!

 

Gern, is there a maximum that you think the govt should take? Your going to let me keep 22%?

 

Look at it this way:

100% of earnings

-60% in taxes every year.

= 40% Mine while I live.

45% estate taxe at my death.

22% left (40% x the 55% my heirs get)that I really get to do with what I want.

 

 

I'm so motivated now!

 

 

 

Who wants to buy a business?

I don't think it's worth the effort, anymore.

 

In this country.

[GernBlansten]

I think your kids should pay income tax on whatever they receive. Don't matter if they get it from you or the lottery.

[JoeBob]

 

Thanks for allowing me to keep 22%.

 

[83Eagle]

If the death tax truly makes sense, then we ought to tax it from dollar one. Grandma passes you down her wedding ring worth $1000 that you'd like to keep to give to your kids someday? Sorry, you gotta pay $350 or 450 or whatever to uncle sam just to keep it.

 

The death tax makes NO sense and the only reason the government gets away with it is by casting in it class warfare terms of "the rich."

[Beavah]

Actually, JoeBob, yeh need to take another look at your math there, eh? As others have mentioned, estate taxes don't kick in on da first dollar.

 

Me, I would want my kids to put in sweat equity to the business, not inherit $5M to sit on their behinds and have a good time. If they do that, then there are all kinds of ways for 'em to save their money and buy into the business.

 

What you're proposing, that they should get a free ride on your labor, just doesn't sit well with my personal values.

 

When yeh extend that to dynasties it gets even creepier, eh? It's one thing to say yeh want to provide for your kids, or even your grandkids. But one of da recent trends is "Dynasty Trusts"... setting up all of your descendants for a life of leisure.

 

That's da risk, eh? Concentration of capital means an end of meritocracy. There was a reason for feudalism, eh? Once capital gets concentrated, da average workin' guy can only work for the fellow with the capital, who gets to sit on his bumb.

 

That's why biblically there was a Jubilee Year, eh? When all debts were erased. Without that, da concentration of capital makes society unstable.

 

Now, to my mind, the better way than the estate tax is what Buffet is tryin' to do, eh? Those who are successful in their life should be taught to return most of it as charity to society, and should expect their kids to work for a living, with only a small boost from pops. Da problem is just what to do with the unethical fellows who want to keep it all in the family, and set up their kids with money for blow. For them, I have no problem with an estate tax, particularly on unearned income.

 

Yep, raise the lower limit on the estate tax to $5-10M. That's plenty for some kids to live on, eh? And it covers the small business or farm. With 5 kids and safe investments, each kid will have unearned income of 50K+ for life without touchin' the principal. Da rest, they can work for the way we did, or at least pay tax on.

 

Beavah

 

[JoeBob]

Beavah,

 

Problems with your position:

 

Beavah: "Concentration of capital means an end of meritocracy."

Nope. The opposite is true. Stealing half what a man owns when he dies robs him off any motivation to accumulate capital.

 

Dynasties are not a modern problem:

 

1. According to a study of Federal Reserve data conducted by NYU professor Edward Wolff, for the nation's richest 1%, inherited wealth accounted for only 9% of their net worth in 2001, down from 23% in 1989. (The 2001 number was the latest available.)

 

2. According to a study by Prince & Associates, less than 10% of today's multi-millionaires cited "inheritance" as their source of wealth.

 

3. A study by Spectrem Group found that among today's millionaires, inherited wealth accounted for just 2% of their total sources of wealth.

 

*****

Beavah: "What you're proposing, that they should get a free ride on your labor, just doesn't sit well with my personal values."

What doesn't sit well with my personal values is the Democrats using the fed to take away my money to give a free ride to their union constituents.

At least I know my kids! (Sorta...)

 

*****

I don't like the principle.

Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Section II titled "Proletarians and Communists." At the end of this section: ten short-term demands revolutionaries wishing to establish a communist state. No. 3.

Abolition of all right of inheritance

What better way for the political class to effect an abolition of all right of inheritance than to simply seize the property BEFORE it can be inherited!

 

Income re-distribution motivates the un-productive to remain un-productive.

Income re-distribution makes the hard-workers feel like fools for even trying.

 

(Credit to Neal Boortz for some wording and research)

 

JoeBob

 

 

[GernBlansten]

"Beavah: "Concentration of capital means an end of meritocracy."

Nope. The opposite is true. Stealing half what a man owns when he dies robs him off any motivation to accumulate capital. "

 

Can't say as that makes any sense. My motivation to accumulate capital is to better my life while I'm alive, what happens to my stuff after I die really doesn't effect my motivation now.

 

Why is it that if you give your kids money before you die, its taxed. But if you die and they inherit it, it shouldn't be taxed? Same transaction in my mind, passing income from one party to another.