This thread has gone some 12 pages just since I last asked for input. I'm too tired to get into it in great detail right now.
My problem with the discussions on taxing all transfers of wealth or death taxes or wherever people are looking for it and focusing on the wealthiest is that it smacks of communism. This large group can pay a little more to make it seem better, but this small group can pay WAY more, so lets hit them if they have too much for the good of the many. We have a $15 trillion debt, a $1.4 trillion deficit, and are spending $3.6 trillion right now. That's a little over $10k for every person in the country a year.
Somehow with this incredible spending, we are ranked 18th in education, our healthcare rating is dropped, we are downgraded in S&P, outsourcing labor is cheaper, and we are in a recession. I'm not getting into the source of each of these because of the great lengths each one can get to.
If you want to start hitting the wealthy in even more ways even though throwing money at the problems has done nothing but make them worse, you are going to end up with one last chance to tax them. That will be on their way out of the country.
Finding ways to dig at the wealthy for more money is not the solution I think we should be looking at here. Making a cheaper, more efficient government should be the first priority by miles. Exacerbating the problem by giving more money to the government hasn't helped in the past. The only way I would support an increase in taxes is if the government learns to live off what it has now and that money goes only to paying off the incredible debt it incurred failing us up to this point.