Capitalism at it's finest. (1 Viewer)

[msommer]

That is what I thought he was trying to say. 

Sales tax is charged on the spending either way. Inheritance tax or no inheritance tax. So unless somehow inheritance tax would REPLACE sales tax, it is irrelevant to the discussion in every way. 

You still don't seem to understand. That's ok. Enjoy the rest of your day

 

[Joe T]

I was adressing tommyboy that did not want to pay tax with money that had already been taxed. Which seemed like a silly position to take unless he is a drug dealer with loads of untaxed cash.

And no, I don't get your point at all

Tons of transactions are not taxed as well. So his position is no sillier than yours.

 

[Politician Spock]

I was a die hard capitalists for decades.... until I came to the conclusion that capitalism is a game, no different than football or Super Mario Brothers. Just like any game, the game naturally favors some people over others. Imagine being born 4 foot 8 inches into a world where if you aren't good at basketball you'll eat Ramen noodles 10 times a week and pray the heat doesn't get turned off every winter. A lot of people are naturally selected by the game to live like that and they hear that "Well, they're just not trying hard enough.... See Spud Webb. He was short and he succeeded."

I've come to the conclusion that there is a point where the successful are taking taking too much, and they should either choose to help people who suck at the game, or be forced to. 

 

[IvanKaramazov]

The economic argument in favor of estate taxes is that wealth inequality is bad[citation needed], and estate taxes are a useful tool to redistribute wealth so as to reduce inequality.

A much better economic argument in favor of estate taxes is that the government has to raise revenue somehow, and estate taxes figure to create far fewer distortions than income taxes or sales taxes.  Yeah, sure, rich people waste some resources seeking out loopholes.  But those distortions are almost certainly an order of magnitude or more less than the distortions caused by progressive income taxes.  An estate tax is pretty close to being an old-school head tax, except the person being taxed is already dead and can't suffer a deadweight loss from beyond the grave.  (They may spend their silver years in angst over their inability to pass their entire estate on to their heirs, admittedly).

 

[tommyboy]

I think he just intended to point out that the "double taxation" argument is silly.

Go on...

 

[parasaurolophus]

You still don't seem to understand. That's ok. Enjoy the rest of your day

Youre right. I have no idea why you brought up something that had nothing to do with what tommyboy said and is completely irrelevant to this discussion. 

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

Go on...

If you were able to track a particular sum of money (yes, I realize money is fungible so this would be ridiculous), you would see the same money being taxed dozens of times.  Somebody gets paid for work. Taxed.  He uses that money to pay his housekeeper. Taxed.  She uses the money to buy something. Taxed.  The store owner wins money with it at the casino. Taxed.  

The way we tax is transactional.  When certain transactions happen, the government taxes them.  When other transactions occur, the government doesn't tax them.

You can make coherent arguments that an inheritance is not the type of transaction we should tax.  There's nothing magical about, say, earning income that makes that a taxable transaction-- we just decided that was a good transaction to tax.

But it doesn't really make sense to say that a particular transaction shouldn't be taxed because the money in that transaction was previously used in a different transaction that was taxed.  Because that's true of any tax.

 

[tommyboy]

If you were able to track a particular sum of money (yes, I realize money is fungible so this would be ridiculous), you would see the same money being taxed dozens of times.  Somebody gets paid for work. Taxed.  He uses that money to pay his housekeeper. Taxed.  She uses the money to buy something. Taxed.  The store owner wins money with it at the casino. Taxed.  

The way we tax is transactional.  When certain transactions happen, the government taxes them.  When other transactions occur, the government doesn't tax them.

You can make coherent arguments that an inheritance is not the type of transaction we should tax.  There's nothing magical about, say, earning income that makes that a taxable transaction-- we just decided that was a good transaction to tax.

But it doesn't really make sense to say that a particular transaction shouldn't be taxed because the money in that transaction was previously used in a different transaction that was taxed.  Because that's true of any tax.

well said.  I just disagree.   I think the estates should be passed on without taxation.  It sucks for the mega rich, they'll get richer, but it helps far more "avg" people that inherit small to medium sized estates, aka most of us.  Speaking from personal experience, when your parent dies, and the IRS comes calling shortly after, its a real kick in the nads

 

[parasaurolophus]

If you were able to track a particular sum of money (yes, I realize money is fungible so this would be ridiculous), you would see the same money being taxed dozens of times.  Somebody gets paid for work. Taxed.  He uses that money to pay his housekeeper. Taxed.  She uses the money to buy something. Taxed.  The store owner wins money with it at the casino. Taxed.  

The way we tax is transactional.  When certain transactions happen, the government taxes them.  When other transactions occur, the government doesn't tax them.

You can make coherent arguments that an inheritance is not the type of transaction we should tax.  There's nothing magical about, say, earning income that makes that a taxable transaction-- we just decided that was a good transaction to tax.

But it doesn't really make sense to say that a particular transaction shouldn't be taxed because the money in that transaction was previously used in a different transaction that was taxed.  Because that's true of any tax.

An inheritance tax is the same as giving your kid a birthday present that you bought at toysrus and paid sales tax on and then in order to open the box and play with it he/she has to pay sales tax again.

It is the same as making a corporation pay income taxes on the money it paid to employees and then have the employees also pay income taxes on it.

It is like having the distributor pay sales tax and then the end user also pay sales tax for the same good. 

 

[msommer]

well said.  I just disagree.   I think the estates should be passed on without taxation.  It sucks for the mega rich, they'll get richer, but it helps far more "avg" people that inherit small to medium sized estates, aka most of us.  Speaking from personal experience, when your parent dies, and the IRS comes calling shortly after, its a real kick in the nads

Well if your estate is above 5m you should buy your kids a cup. Otherwise there is no tax...