Joel Pett for January 28, 2015

The inheritance tax is the worst form of class warfare.

The Have-nots can’t wait to swoop in and feast on the carcass of a family that managed to live within their means and want to leave the remainder to their children to help them after they have passed.

For Every Paris Hilton (The poster child that the progressives point to as unfairly inheriting her wealth) there are thousands of families who grew a business, a farm, a nest egg and that money should go to the rightful heirs who sacrificed along with their parents.

Wealth doesn’t appear by luck. It grows from a family that works hard, makes the right decisions, foregos lavish expenditures. The very people who want to swoop in and take that wealth are the ones who didn’t do those things or sanctimoniously want to do it for others.

Theodore Roosevelt was a wealthy Republican who advocated for, and helped create, the very estate tax wealthy Republicans now seek to end. Roosevelt thought it was outright unamerican to acquire your wealth solely through inheritance. But I guess he was just engaging in “class warfare” as well.Fun fact: Theodore Roosevelt was also a staunch conservationist who created the National Park system. Hard to believe that conservatives used to conserve the environment.

People who accumulate a small nest egg have already paid taxes in some form during their lifetime. When they die, should the government demand that whatever assets are left be consficated in order to serve ‘the greater good’ ?

The Democrats would love to have the inheritance tax rate set at 100% with no minimum exemption. All monetary and personal items (family heirlooms) would be seized upon death to be ‘resdistributed’ to those who did not save for a rainy day.

No, look at the Kennedy estate. Democrats talk about taxing the rich but set up the tax code so it can be avoided by those who have money for lawyers and accountants.

Name someone who really started out POOR and made millions.Then think of all the ways they could protect those millions.-Most successful people had some help or luck along the way. Despite the ridicule, the idea of “you didn’t build that” is accurate – a person would only be able to make millions by using infrastructure in some way whether it is roads, utilities, schools, etc.

@nance19oped – “Most successful people had some luck along the way” hmmmm – So what you are saying is that the progressives should be able to loot the earnings and savings of families because their might have been some luck involved. This sounds so much like the Looters in Atlas Shrugged that whined about how some “just didn’t get a fair chance.”

You are absolutely correct that successful people almost certainly used infrastructure available to all : Roads, Telecommunications, police, banking etc. And if they amassed any wealth then they paid taxes along the way just like everybody else.

Progressives love to strut and crowe about how they are trying to make it fair for the people that weren’t born into a successful family. If you take their approach to it’s logical conclusion then the progressives should be lobbying the government to enslave the smart and capable parents to help the children, who don’t have smart and capable parents, with their homework and their upbringing. After all, parents that provide a good environment for their children to grow and thrive are giving them an unfair advantage over the kids raised in the households of crackheads, drunks, and sluggards.

Money is fungible and easy to take so the progressives chase after it because they assume the masses will treat money they didn’t earn like casino chips. It’s a lot more difficult to see that money taxed away when you know how hard you worked for it. It’s even worse when you see it being squandered on scoundrels and wastrels in the form of cash assistance.

Just for fun: let’s examine the idea of being taxed on stuff already taxed. Let’s assume Farmer Jones has a farm. He buys a tractor, pays sales taxes and property taxes. He pays property tax on his land. He pays gas tax when he fills his tractor, he pays sales tax on his fertilizer and farm equipment. He pays gasoline taxes taking his product to market (and there are more steps along the way, but you get the point.

Why should I have to pay sales tax on that food? How many times has my food been taxed already.

Is this “communist”? Unfair? Should my tax burden be lifted because everything I buy has been already taxed at least once, and probably several times?

Someone has to pay taxes. If we exempt everyone, we go broke. And look where we are now…..

$1billion/[$9/hour(California minimum wage)]=11.111million hours/(40hours/week)/(52weeks/year)=53,418years. If the guy flipping mammoth burgers got 40 hours per week, with no vacations or holidays. No one has ever earned a billion dollars. There was lying, cheating, stealing, & buying politicians (to make such legal) involved.

@SizeofPea – I don’t like paying taxes but I recognize that they are one of the burdens of citizenship. I pay them because I do like infrastructure, and police, and a military, and …

I think much of the resentment you see from the tax paying class is that they have become a minority. Less then 50% of the population pays actual Federal Income taxes. The supports call them an insurance policy for those who receive the benefits but call them a tax for those who have support the beneficiaries.

I won’t speak for all Republicans but I and most (if not all) of my friends don’t hate Americans (That’s the worst strawman I’ve seen all day). What many of us don’t like is an attitude of entitlement from some Americans that says they should be exempted from responsibility for their own upkeep and that responsibility should be shifted onto the backs of taxpayers.

More then once you have painted a cartoonish picture of Republicans as monsters that don’t understand what it means to work. Every Republican I know works hard every day and tries their best to provide for their family and their community.

My wife and I started life together with $100 and a good work ethic. We made good life choices and enjoyed a little luck and now heading into the last lap of our working years we have amassed a nest egg that will make us comfortable in our retirement regardless of the state of Social Security. So you will forgive me if I’m not a little leery of any government proposal that will make us responsible for supporting even more people who failed to plan and invest for their future. That nest egg didn’t just magically appear. It required sacrifice, self denial, and it required monitoring and managing.

I’m all for government programs that build infrastructure – especially when they demand that current taxpayers pay for it (rather then my kids and grandkids). I’m not so supportive of government programs that coddle the indolent and the stupid.

@MangeyMoose – Unfortunately, when they start proposing taxes its those of us who can’t afford the lawyers and the accountants that pay the freight so another group of loafers and avoid the responsibilities of citizenship.

I think I’ve donated all of $50 in political campaigns all my life so I do not have the Donkey or the Elephant close at hand. Why should my kids be overly encumbered with responsibility for taxes when my wife and I pass away?

“Any good American hates taxes.”Teddy Roosevelt was a bad American? Better call the work crews to have him removed from Mount Rushmore!

@ The Trusted Mechanic – I consider myself a conservative don’t hate America as you like to get on your high horse and shout out.-I also don’t mind paying a fair share of taxes. What I am sick of is the fact that it is never enough for our greedy politicians. They constantly propose more taxes so they can feed their base with pork so they can get re-elected (and yes I get angry when my politicians do it). They create “temporary taxes” that never seem to go away and give billions to countries that spit in our face as they take our money. Democrats and Republicans both increase taxes whenever they can get away with it and play politics to hide it so they can pay off each of their crony base.-Our government is out of control.

Oh, I understand now. You’re saying you resent having to pay for the roads, bridges police & military, fire protection, and all of the other things government provides you that you take for granted.I don’t hate paying taxes. It’s the price of living in a civilized society. What I resent is the corruption and waste.

Log, you seem more interested in proving your outlook is the correct one that you are not seeing the real world around you.

Can you explain to me how America existed without income taxes for it’s firs 100+ years?Who pays to clean up our rivers? The farther down the river you lived the waste from the outhouses built up- ,more disease. 100 years ago who paved the roads and built the bridges for the cars? Oh, there weren’t many were there. That’s a start for the differences in 100 years; I bet you can think of a few more.To the others that wonder about inheritance tax on the very wealthy- many of those people that made so much money that their grandchildren and greatgrand children still don’t have to work made their money in bootlegging, selling opium to the Chinese or built railroads using poorly paid or unpaid immigrant labor. This inheritance tax is not for reasonably paid families that use the money to give their a little lift.

“I get it… wasting my breath. You just don’t have the mental capacity to understand no matter how many ways I spell it out.”Trying to explain why “all good Americans” should resent paying for the governmental services that are a part of their lives is indeed a waste of your breath. It sounds ungrateful.

They don’t have to work for it, someone already did, and it was already taxed. You shouldn’t be allowed two bites of the apple.