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which best describes your view of the inheritance tax?

which best describes your view of the inheritance tax?


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I'm actually okay with a slightly higher luxury goods rate than necessary ones. I'm fine with the full rate taxed on electronics, cars, etc. and a basic rate on food, utilities, basic housing, and other needs. To me the rate discussed in the "fair tax" book seems a little high but it was around 22%, the thing is they proved that we're already paying that along the chain in hidden taxes. So if it's 22% on luxury goods I'd say maybe around 5-10% on necessities depending on the current earnings climate.
This is quite unrealistic. The Fair Tax quoted rate is 23%, but that means that the final cost of an item with a pre-tax price of $100 would be $130, not $123. This is because $30 is 23.08% of $130 and the sponsors of the Fair Tax wanted the rate to sound as low as possible (especially after focus groups showed that public support for such flat-taxes dropped precipitously once the rate went beyond 25%), so they stated the rate in a way that is entirely counter-intuitive with respect to sales taxes.

We meanwhile do not pay in hidden taxes anything like the amounts that the Fair Tax people claim to be able to recover. The bureaucratic costs of the IRS would supposedly vanish, but the costs of the new and even more invasive bureaucracy that would have to track people in every step of their personal lives in order to assure that they were still eligible to receive a monthly "prebate" check are ignored and thus grossly underestimated. Also not well considered is the factor by which state and local governments will have to come up with new revenues to cover new taxes that they will owe on their existing purchases of new goods and services. These entities do not currently pay income taxes, hence these Fair Tax outlays would be new gross costs to them. This is hardly the end of the issues with the proposal. Consider for instance that if you are a homeowner, you would not only lose the mortgage interest deduction that you currently enjoy, but you would have to pay that 30% sales tax on the interest portion of your monthly mortgage installment as a purchase of new financial services. That will typically run several hundred dollars per month. Are people really aware of and ready for that?

And speaking of housing, the cost of a new home would have to include a 30% sales tax, while the cost of an existing home would have to include a 0% sales tax. What might happen in real estate markets as the result of that, I wonder. Any implications for new versus used cars?
 
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what makes sense is a tax system that prevents the masses' votes being bought by a system that allows politicians to promise them more government paid for by tax hikes on others
You're kidding, right? I've never seen anything closer to actually buying votes than contributing $$$ billions to political campaigns. It isn't "the masses" making those huge contributions, it's the rich and their corporate minions. The masses don't write the tax laws or vote on them. Face it, the rich buy the only votes that really matter in America - the votes of the lawmakers.
 
Okay. 1) People drive income, there is no income to tax without people so you are wrong. 2) Inheritance is not income. It goes Income, Dividends, Capital Gains, Inheritance and they are all different types of monetary transactions with very specific definitions. Under any honest definition income has already been taxed. For the purposes of today's tax code dividends come from investment and capital gains are a secondary tax, which is fine because there has been a value transaction. The Inheritance is off of the estate which is all monies and items pertaining to the deceased including properties, items of value, investments, and money all of which has been taxed already and is not a value transaction but merely a transferrence. So if you are equating it to income you are wrong.
With all due respect, this is full of mistakes. Review the legislation and law -- it is very clear that it is INCOME that is being taxed, from whatever source derived. No people. It is no different from property taxes on that score. It is very clear that it is the property that is being taxed and the person who owns the property is merely the one who pays.

An inheritance is money or other goods that you did not previously own that you now do. Inheritances are taxed under the same regime as gifts. Creating an argument that these are not taxable flows will be a very difficult task. If it were feasible, it would have been accomplished already.

It doesn't matter if something has been taxed already. Everything has in fact been taxed already, so complaining of it is rather pointless. There is no rule or promise anywhere that says anything will be taxed only once and then that's the end of it. People try to enforce some principle that fails in actuality to exist.

Particularly with respect to large estates (the only kind which actually pays any federal estate tax anymore), substantial and even majority portions of them are derived from unrealized capital gains that have never been taxed before, and since these assets will move to an heir at their stepped-up basis, these gains never will be taxed unless that is done at the time of inheritance.
 
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You want to back that? You cannot be in a higher earning bracket without a higher income. So that was in fact a stupid assertion, do you actually want to deny that people with more money are being hijacked by the tax code because they earn more?
Your personal opinion on the matter is of course entirely irrelevant. Unless you can make a valid claim that your million-dollar income is being treated differently from the million-dollar income of someone similalry situated, you have no case. None. Congress has a clear power to create as many tax brackets as it wants at whatever rates that it wants.
 
what makes sense is a tax system that prevents the masses' votes being bought by a system that allows politicians to promise them more government paid for by tax hikes on others
You mean tax hikes on income that others have, I suppose. Maybe I should remind you while I'm at it though that the first rule of tax policy is that you can only tax the money. Whoever has all the money will pay all the taxes. If you want the middle class to pay more in taxes and the wealthy to pay less, simply move some money from the wealthy to the middle class, and your job will be done.
 
This is quite unrealistic. The Fair Tax quoted rate is 23%, but that means that the final cost of an item with a pre-tax price of $100 would be $130, not $123. This is because $30 is 23.08% of $130 and the sponsors of the Fair Tax wanted the rate to sound as low as possible (especially after focus groups showed that public support for such flat-taxes dropped precipitously once the rate went beyond 25%), so they stated the rate in a way that is entirely counter-intuitive with respect to sales taxes.
In pure numbers you are correct. I flinched at first when the rate was introduced in the book dealing with the subject but the competition argument presented therein is compelling. Basically it states that all previous taxes are to be counted for the year prior, then the consumption tax(only) would indeed add to the purchase price, consider though that other taxes are stricken from the record so this becomes "at point of transaction" taxation rather than a constant tax on earnings. Therefore taxes paid at transaction would essentially be relatively close to what is already paid in actual dollars plus or minus consumption habits. The idea is that once the "hidden taxation" along the chain dissappears profits are better realized and can be passed along to the consumer as price reductions, the counter argument being that businesses will retain the larger margins. However the nature of competition will state that businesses will realize that the larger margins are less than a quantitative margin with more sales so they will reduce prices, the pressure of competitive price drops will force other businesses to likewise lower their own prices until the sustainable rate is hit, this gives the consumer a better price even with the high tax rate. I don't summarize the book as well as I would like to but I do suggest it as a read, a lot of it makes sense.
We meanwhile do not pay in hidden taxes anything like the amounts that the Fair Tax people claim to be able to recover.
This is simply not true. Even at a minimum wage there are still taxes on labor that must be paid such as FICA, Medicare/Medicaid, etc. Then there are compliance costs etc. A simplified tax code would eliminate much of that.
The bureaucratic costs of the IRS would supposedly vanish, but the costs of the new and even more invasive bureaucracy that would have to track people in every step of their personal lives in order to assure that they were still eligible to receive a monthly "prebate" check are ignored and thus grossly underestimated.
First, I am not a fan of the prebate, actually neither are the authors of the bill, this is a concession to the side that is worried about the poor being hurt by this tax. I actually favor a lower rate on necessities and a "luxury Tax Rate" on consumer goods with a margin gap complimentary to both. The idea of eliminating the IRS is a good one, first off they have less accountability to due process than any other agency which is concerning, secondly if the IRS were to be dissolved it would not be that difficult to incorporate into the FBI former agents of the IRS to enforce collection and investigate failures to pay on collections. I think that is an economically viable alternative.
Also not well considered is the factor by which state and local governments will have to come up with new revenues to cover new taxes that they will owe on their existing purchases of new goods and services. These entities do not currently pay income taxes, hence these Fair Tax outlays would be new gross costs to them. This is hardly the end of the issues with the proposal.
States already lay and collect taxes in some form or another, and they do still pay a "hidden tax" on all purchases, I would argue that once consumer goods needed to run state operations became less expensive buying in bulk or in fleet would actually save states a considerable amount of money.
Consider for instance that if you are a homeowner, you would not only lose the mortgage interest deduction that you currently enjoy, but you would have to pay that 30% sales tax on the interest portion of your monthly mortgage installment as a purchase of new financial services.That will typically run several hundred dollars per month. Are people really aware of and ready for that?
Actually, the taxes would be paid on purchase. Consider this, if the mortgage deduction is lost it is a percentage of what the mortgage represents, under any tax system you still have a mortgage but if you are making 60k a year and taxed 10k with a mortgage deduction of say 1k you save at that point 1k but still pay 9k, with the fair tax you retain the 10k but pay at purchase. The mortgage is a standing financial service so you would pay at signing not on a continual basis so through the life of the mortgage you actually have free money as disposable income which leads to either consumption or investment/savings at which you pay the taxes. I argue that the consumer is still ahead.

And speaking of housing, the cost of a new home would have to include a 30% sales tax, while the cost of an existing home would have to include a 0% sales tax. What might happen in real estate markets as the result of that, I wonder. Any implications for new versus used cars?
I don't think behavior will change all that much. Many people already don't buy new cars due to the automatic depreciation upon leaving the lot, used cars have a lower rate, I believe that a new car/new home buyer is already of the mindset that they will pay for new. Most people who buy new homes buy because it has what they want, many buyers of existing homes do so as a trade off on cost. I see no reason this would change.
 
Your personal opinion on the matter is of course entirely irrelevant. Unless you can make a valid claim that your million-dollar income is being treated differently from the million-dollar income of someone similalry situated, you have no case. None. Congress has a clear power to create as many tax brackets as it wants at whatever rates that it wants.
According to the sixteenth it does. As I said earlier economic discrimination is still discrimination and if someone wanted to press the issue using the equal protections clause they would have a decent case.
 
The rich seem to be paying about 20% LESS per dollar than they were just a decade or so ago. These last years have been like a tax holiday for the wealthy. More and more low-income workers meanwhile fall off the rolls because their incomes are stagnant enough to render them unqualified to pay taxes anymore.


same with everyone else-especially the 50% or so who pay NO INCOME TAX. Guess what, the rich pay a higher percentage of the income tax now than at any time in the last 60 years.
 
You're kidding, right? I've never seen anything closer to actually buying votes than contributing $$$ billions to political campaigns. It isn't "the masses" making those huge contributions, it's the rich and their corporate minions. The masses don't write the tax laws or vote on them. Face it, the rich buy the only votes that really matter in America - the votes of the lawmakers.

why does the class warrior in chief constantly spew stuff out his ass claiming the "rich don't pay their fair share"

and you seem to think all the rich and all the corporations are GOP leaning. complete crap
 
why does the class warrior in chief constantly spew stuff out his ass claiming the "rich don't pay their fair share"

and you seem to think all the rich and all the corporations are GOP leaning. complete crap
As a matter of fact, the largest bank in America Golman Sachs paid almost nothing as well as General Electric and both contribute enormous sums of money exclusively to Democrat candidates.
 
As a matter of fact, the largest bank in America Golman Sachs paid almost nothing as well as General Electric and both contribute enormous sums of money exclusively to Democrat candidates.


If all the rich and if all the fortune 500 companies only contributed to the GOP the howling these far lefties engage in might has some small iota of merit
 
are you unaware of the fact that the income tax structure is a main reason why we have a deficit?

It is true the regressive tax changes and excessive military spending and optional wars over the last 30 years of is responsible for most of our debt.
 
No what is psychobabble is your idiotic attempts to use those words to justify the government-through force-seizing the property of the productive to give it to the unproductive, the lazy and the untalented

Really, I mearly quoted what was said "WE THE PEOPLE"
Which you called psycobabble not I.

If you think it was my idiotic attempt to use these words for my benifit alone.
Then, sir, suppose you tell me and the posters what it does mean this "WE THE PEOPLE" what does it mean to you, sir??:peace
 
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It is true the regressive tax changes and excessive military spending and optional wars over the last 30 years of is responsible for most of our debt.

only spending

and much of that spending is because those who demand it aren't taxed to pay for it
 
Really, I mearly qoted what was said "WE THE PEOPLE"
Which you called psycobabble not I.

If you think it was my idiotic attempt to use these words for my benifit alone.
Then, sir, suppose you tell me and the posters what it does mean this "WE THE PEOPLE" what does it mean to you, sir??:peace

your opinions I call psychobabble along with your claims that "we the people"=a justification for income redistribution
 
Yeah and others get on my ass for claiming ENVY AND SPITE motivates lots of the bash the rich idiocy I see on this board.

Not only are your posts oozing mendacity, they are just plain stupid.

Sir, I do not understand your post nor your logic.

You tell me not to envy the rich.
My response I ENVY NO PERSON I AM HAPPY BEING WHO I AM
Your response to that is you are not happy.
You say the rich are being treated unfair
My response I pity the poor rich
Your response you call my post mendacity and just plain stupid

You seem a bit lost, sir you ask for something but when you get it you are unhappy.
You ask people to stop something but when you realize they never started you seem unhappy.
You ask for truthful answers yet when you recieve them you are unhappy
I must warn you I'm not a licensed therapist but if you need help just ask. lol,lol,lol
 
Sir, I do not understand your post nor your logic.

You tell me not to envy the rich.
My response I ENVY NO PERSON I AM HAPPY BEING WHO I AM
Your response to that is you are not happy.
You say the rich are being treated unfair
My response I pity the poor rich
Your response you call my post mendacity and just plain stupid

You seem a bit lost, sir you ask for something but when you get it you are unhappy.
You ask people to stop something but when you realize they never started you seem unhappy.
You ask for truthful answers yet when you recieve them you are unhappy
I must warn you I'm not a licensed therapist but if you need help just ask. lol,lol,lol

More psychobabble. Nothing in the constitution, its preamble etc suggests that income redistribution is a proper function of the federal government. The only thing I am unhappy with is the amount of parasites who think they have a claim to the wealth of others
 
Why should corporations pay taxes at all? They're not people and they don't vote. They're nothing but giant machines that turn money into (hopefully) more money. Only problem with corporations is that they're misappropriating shareholder funds to inappropriately involve themselves in the political process.
 
only spending

and much of that spending is because those who demand it aren't taxed to pay for it


Everyone with a shred of common sense knows that lack of income is a major part of not being able to pay one's bills. Its why they didn't cut tax rates during WWII, and the US has spent more on the war on terror than any other war.
 
Everyone with a shred of common sense knows that lack of income is a major part of not being able to pay one's bills. Its why they didn't cut tax rates during WWII, and the US has spent more on the war on terror than any other war.

duh, this government spends too much and who elects those big spenders? not the top one percent
 
duh, this government spends too much and who elects those big spenders? not the top one percent


The biggest waste in spending in our lifetimes was the Iraq war. A majority of Democrats voted against AOF, and an almost unanimous majority of the GOP voted for AOF.

I rest my case "counselor."



But of course your purpose was just to divert away from the fact that the tax rates for capital gains are the lowest they have been in 80 years!!!
 
The biggest waste in spending in our lifetimes was the Iraq war. A majority of Democrats voted against AOF, and an almost unanimous majority of the GOP voted for AOF.

I rest my case "counselor."



But of course your purpose was just to divert away from the fact that the tax rates for capital gains are the lowest they have been in 80 years!!!

so what-they are still higher than the ZERO rates we had for more than half this country's history

and the Iraqi war-while a waste was a constitutional spending.

the "war on poverty" and the dependency created by it cost far more and is of dubious constitutional validity

your case just got tossed on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion-it failed to state a valid claim upon which relief could be granted
 
Wealthier Americans pay higher taxes than middle- or low-income earners; according to the latest Internal Revenue Service data, Americans earning more than $1 million in 2009 paid at an average income tax rate of 25%, while the average rate for taxpayers earning $75,000 to $100,000 was 8%.
In contrast, Americans making $100,000 to $200,000 paid on average 12% in taxes -- but this group paid a quarter of all income taxes collected in 2009, according to IRS data. Add in those making up to $500,000 -- who paid at a rate of 19% -- and these two groups contributed 45% of all income taxes collected. Americans earning more than $1 million, on the other hand, in 2009 paid just 20% of total taxes collected.


Read more: Who Pays the Highest Taxes? | Fox Business
 
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