what better way for the government to say "fuck you" in your time of mourning than to steal from you

5/15/2010 5:29:19 PM

Agreed, I really can't understand how its anything other than theft.

5/15/2010 5:33:38 PM

govt see money in dead people!

5/15/2010 5:42:21 PM

mason jars buried in the yard

fuck the gubment

5/15/2010 5:57:18 PM

what is their reasoning behind it? that they are providing a service by protecting the money for those that are legally inheriting it? sucks...

just keep a safe in the house and have a trusting family member lol

5/15/2010 6:15:28 PM

Quote :

"what is their reasoning behind it?"

that they are the gubment and there's nothing you can do about it

5/15/2010 6:27:14 PM

Hurfy durfy

5/15/2010 10:00:48 PM

I guess what I don't understand about the tax is presumably taxes have already been paid on this money at some point (income tax, sales tax, etc).

5/15/2010 10:05:34 PM

Money is generally taxed when it, or something else of value, changes hands.

How is the inheritance tax really any different?

[Edited on May 15, 2010 at 10:07 PM. Reason : ]

5/15/2010 10:07:03 PM

People think there should be tax exceptions for all sorts of things.

5/15/2010 10:10:37 PM

^^ That's true. Hadn't really thought of it that way.

5/15/2010 10:11:53 PM

what isn't yours cannot be stolen from you

5/15/2010 10:19:30 PM

double dipping is what it is. it was already taxed once as the deceased persons income...now its taxed again because its yours.

5/15/2010 10:29:25 PM

Quote :

"The estate tax exclusion is set to expire in 2010, meaning that there will be no estate tax in 2010. It will then reappear in 2011 with a $1 million exclusion, unless Congress changes it."

quick everybody, kill your progenitors!!

[Edited on May 15, 2010 at 10:32 PM. Reason : .]

5/15/2010 10:32:02 PM

^^ possibly triple taxed if the deceased's income came from a corporate paycheck!

5/15/2010 10:36:28 PM

in order to avoid inheritance tax, my grandmother has been giving away 12k per person per year as a gift free of taxes

5/15/2010 11:12:40 PM

^ That's awesome!

5/15/2010 11:30:41 PM

Quote :

"what isn't yours cannot be stolen from you"

True. You don't own your land. You don't own your money. You don't even even own your life, unless you go into the woods and hide.

5/16/2010 12:03:14 AM

Quote :

"quick everybody, kill your progenitors!!"

Nice edit. Watching O Brother?

5/16/2010 12:04:21 AM

there's a lot of ignorance in this thread, but I expect nothing less from chit chat

Quote :

"Over the past 10 years, there has been a gradual recognition that it makes little sense to shower tax breaks on a tiny sliver of the nation's wealthiest citizens (only about 0.6% of estates were subject to the tax in 2008, according to the Tax Policy Center), even moreso when less affluent Americans are feeling the effects of a brutal recession. At a time of record, trillion dollar federal deficits, it's even harder to justify the revenue loss. Repeal advocates rarely bother to say where else they'd get the money because the inevitable answer is that it would come from people of lesser means. And with Democrats now in control of the White House and Congress, political support for killing the estate tax has sharply eroded. For all the hype about how the tax kills small businesses and family farms, the facts are that very few are actually hit by the tax — an estimated 550 in 2008 — and fewer still have to be sold to pay it. During last year's presidential campaign, both Barack Obama and John McCain advocated keeping the estate tax in some form. The latest evidence of an emerging consensus to retain the tax is a major shift among business groups that have been staunch backers of repeal. Just thisweek, 46 groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business, announced that they want not repeal, but a permanent 35% tax on estates worth more than $10 million. That's a bit rich (this year's exemption is a generous $3.5 million), but it's a sign that compromise might be attainable in this long-running policy war."

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/09/debate-on-inheritance-tax-our-view-unless-estate-law-changes-it-pays-to-die-in-2010.html

5/16/2010 12:12:34 PM

Fucking class warrior. Who it hits and doesn't hit is irrelevant. The money was taxed when it was earned, taxed if it was used to buy anything that is now being inherited, will be taxed again when that stuff (say, land) is sold, and then taxed again when the money is used to buy anything.

Why the hell does it need to be taxed because someone died and left an estate to heirs?

5/16/2010 12:19:10 PM

and while the exemption was 3.5 million, in 2011 it will be lowered to 1 million

your number of people affected is about to increase significantly

5/16/2010 12:24:11 PM

Quote :

"Who it hits and doesn't hit is irrelevant."

No, in fact it's quite relevant, if you consider facts about the world to be important when making decisions.

5/16/2010 12:35:03 PM

yeah man I hate it when I get free money for doing nothing and then the GOVERNMENT has to go and take some of that money that I EARNED

5/16/2010 12:46:18 PM

just spend it all. i hope i die broke. better yet, i hope i die in debt.


it's income. income gets taxed.

[Edited on May 16, 2010 at 12:49 PM. Reason : ]

5/16/2010 12:47:24 PM

Quote :

"Why the hell does it need to be taxed because someone died and left an estate to heirs?"

Money's changin' hands, dawg

5/16/2010 12:49:53 PM

i would rather the money that i made, and was taxed on, go to my kids not the government

5/16/2010 12:50:13 PM

Quote :

"i would rather the money that i made, and was taxed on, go to my kids not the government"

of course you would. what the fuck does that have to do with anything?

5/16/2010 12:52:27 PM

Quote :

"i hope i die broke. better yet, i hope i die in debt. "

someone in your family will have to pick up that debt and pay it off

5/16/2010 1:12:33 PM

and i'll be too dead to care

5/16/2010 1:15:18 PM

Quote :

"Fucking class warrior."

haha I like how i get called a class warrior for quoting a USA Today blog post, come the fuck on dude

Quote :

"and while the exemption was 3.5 million, in 2011 it will be lowered to 1 million"

I weep for the injusticies perpetrated upon people who inherit more than $1 million from their parents/relatives, I really do

5/16/2010 1:26:31 PM

uhh, when you include houses, land, cars, savings etc. 1mill is really not that much

5/16/2010 1:30:29 PM

"when you include a lot of expensive things, 1 mill is really not that much"

lol

5/16/2010 1:33:16 PM

most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor.

[Edited on May 16, 2010 at 1:38 PM. Reason : .]

5/16/2010 1:37:23 PM

than wut

5/16/2010 1:38:20 PM

fuck the banks then you don't have to pay them shit.

5/16/2010 1:54:44 PM

Quote :

"I weep for the injusticies perpetrated upon people who inherit more than $1 million from their parents/relatives, I really do"

Fucking class warrior.

5/16/2010 2:58:17 PM

a mighty epithet if there ever were one

5/16/2010 3:02:01 PM

I would say it's better to be a class warrior than to be blatantly oppressed by the upper classes, which is what the class warfare argument effectively tries to do. You can't look weak.

5/16/2010 3:04:50 PM

so what happens if you work in a family business that's valued at more than a million dollars, but in reality it's worth much less and you can't sell off a portion of the assets to pay the taxes without destroying the entire business? should the government really be able to strip you of a family farm or small business just because they placed some arbitrary value on the property and want their cut?

5/16/2010 3:05:01 PM

Quote :

"Money is generally taxed when it, or something else of value, changes hands. "

Q F motherfucking T

The "double dipping" argument enrages me. Your company's money is taxed. The share of it they pay to you is then taxed again. The share of it you spend on things is taxed again. Then when you die and can't possibly care what happens to it BECAUSE YOU ARE FUCKING DEAD, they tax it one more time, and then only if you have quite a bit of it.

There are other, more legitimate arguments against this tax, but I want to hear no more bitching about how it's being double-taxed.

5/16/2010 3:07:46 PM

Estate taxes prevent rich families from getting richer over time, creating a land of nobles and serfs. So it serves a purpose.

5/16/2010 3:18:30 PM

I thought the rich getting richer was better for everyone.

5/16/2010 3:20:17 PM

If you want to keep that money, all of it, just give it to your wife. See, the IRS allows you a one-time-only gift to your spouse. It's good up to sixty thousand dollars.

It's perfectly legal. Go ask the IRS, they'll say the same thing. Actually, I feel silly telling you all this. I'm sure you would have investigated the matter yourself.

5/16/2010 3:33:09 PM

^i believe this boy is about to have himself an accident

[Edited on May 16, 2010 at 3:48 PM. Reason : do you trust your wife?]

5/16/2010 3:45:36 PM

Quote :

"Estate taxes prevent rich families from getting richer over time, creating a land of nobles and serfs. So it serves a purpose. "

Not at the levels we have, it doesn't really do this.

It seems like it more encourages investment rather than just hoarding money.

5/16/2010 3:57:52 PM

So wait. Yeah I'm being slightly dumb but I'm unclear on how this works. Say it takes effect at 1 million. A man dies and he has 1.5 million in the bank. Does it kick in, immediately, and the govt swoops in and takes their percentage before it can be disbursed? Or, if he gives $999,999 to one relative and $500,001 to another, is the tax avoided?

Also, similar to what someone mentioned about businesses/land, what if someone dies with a plot of land (say a family farm) worth $1.1 million, and has a negligible amount of cash/savings/other assets. Whoever inherits the land has to pony up $400K to pay off the government or they lose the family holdings? That's extremely shitty.

5/16/2010 6:41:05 PM

Quote :

"someone in your family will have to pick up that debt and pay it off "

sure, back in the days when we had debtor's prisons.

But now? Not so much.

5/16/2010 6:51:55 PM

The point is that 1 million is enough to inherit at 100%. It wouldn't be bad to take the rest but they're only taking a small % of the rest.

If you have a problem with that then ask yourself a question.

Are you really trying to help your children? By having millions given to them they will live useless lives and be useless to society.

5/16/2010 6:57:01 PM

Quote :

"By having millions given to them they will live useless lives and be useless to society."

nice assumption

5/16/2010 6:59:23 PM