The American Aristocracy: The super rich have gotten their lackeys in the House of Representatives to pass a bill to kill the estate tax for the fourth time in as many years. However, the prognosis for the bill in the Senate isn't so good.
President Bush's mandate to end the tax requires congress to pass a bill that will have NO EFFECT on current tax collection figures. That is, he wants to end the estate tax so that his aristoractic friends can pass on the mega bucks they've inhereted to their children without them paying their fair share of taxes. But he wants to maintain the flow of tax money into the government's coffers.
The only way to do this, of course, is to raise taxes in some other fashion, and the administration is dedicated to lowering taxes, not raising them. (READ MY LIPS!)
Let's see, in this hand I got a rock, in the other is a very hard place. Hmmmm?
According to Congress's own budget agency estimates, removing the tax would result in a net loss of $290 BILLION over the next ten years. (Can you imagine how much money these kiddies must have in order to pay that much money in taxes?) So, if the tax is repealed, that debt is going to be dumped on your back and mine, and our children. Aren't we already supporting those fat cats enough?
Who pays the estate tax? You have to have assets in excess of $1.5 million dollars to qualify (or $3 million for a married couple). Those exemptions are increasing too. By 2009 they will double.
Part of the fallacious argument against the estate tax has to do with the claim that it taxes money already taxed. For the most part this simply is not true. Money earned on houses, stocks and bonds are NOT taxed until they are sold, and if you inherit them, then they've never been taxed.
The real agenda here is to do away with the capital gains tax. The rich who make money off of money want to go untaxed. They believe folks who actually work should foot the bill for all of the government programs from which they have benefitted for more than 90 percent of the folks in this country who do the actual work and serve in your military.
President Bush's mandate to end the tax requires congress to pass a bill that will have NO EFFECT on current tax collection figures. That is, he wants to end the estate tax so that his aristoractic friends can pass on the mega bucks they've inhereted to their children without them paying their fair share of taxes. But he wants to maintain the flow of tax money into the government's coffers.
The only way to do this, of course, is to raise taxes in some other fashion, and the administration is dedicated to lowering taxes, not raising them. (READ MY LIPS!)
Let's see, in this hand I got a rock, in the other is a very hard place. Hmmmm?
According to Congress's own budget agency estimates, removing the tax would result in a net loss of $290 BILLION over the next ten years. (Can you imagine how much money these kiddies must have in order to pay that much money in taxes?) So, if the tax is repealed, that debt is going to be dumped on your back and mine, and our children. Aren't we already supporting those fat cats enough?
Who pays the estate tax? You have to have assets in excess of $1.5 million dollars to qualify (or $3 million for a married couple). Those exemptions are increasing too. By 2009 they will double.
Part of the fallacious argument against the estate tax has to do with the claim that it taxes money already taxed. For the most part this simply is not true. Money earned on houses, stocks and bonds are NOT taxed until they are sold, and if you inherit them, then they've never been taxed.
The real agenda here is to do away with the capital gains tax. The rich who make money off of money want to go untaxed. They believe folks who actually work should foot the bill for all of the government programs from which they have benefitted for more than 90 percent of the folks in this country who do the actual work and serve in your military.
posted by Jim | 3:51 PM
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