"When it comes to the Death Tax, it is, as liberals and progressives are fond of saying, simply an issue of fairness.
* Taxes have already been paid on that money.
* If someone has a principle belief that the government should Not be able to double tax people for what they didn't spend before they die, the amount they leave behind shouldn't matter.
* If a person believes the government Should be able to double tax what people leave behind, then, again, the amount left shouldn't matter. So even a person who only leaves $500 in his bank account when he dies should also be subjected to that same sort of "fair" government double taxation treatment, or rather, his heirs should be on their inheritance."
The problem with repealing the death tax completely is that it affects very few families, but because of the way this "reform" is structured, everything that is being repealed is going to have to be paid for some other way - so you give with one hand and take away with the other, and the playing field is not level as far as who's getting and who's giving is concerned. There are a lot of things being given up that affect a lot more people, depending on which version (House or Senate) of the bill you look at - mortgage interest deduction, student loan interest deduction, state and local tax deduction (that's double taxation as well), medical deduction...
Look at the AMT - that was created to force people who structured their businesses in such a way as to avoid paying taxes to actually pay some taxes. Eliminating it is going to save millions for those people. Look at Trump - the one tax return we know anything about, 2005, showed that he paid $31 million in AMT, probably due to the fact that he had so many deductions that he was going to pay little or nothing despite the size of his income that year. The death tax repeal could potentially save his family a billion or more. Yet he has the nerve to get up there and say that this plan isn't going to do anything for him at all. Just another in an unending string of his lies.
Tax reform is definitely needed, but this isn't it - this is tax cuts for those who need them the least. Several GOP Senators and Congressmen are on record as saying that their donors would stop giving them money if they didn't get this passed. That's the real reason this thing is being rammed down our throats. The only faint light at the end of the tunnel right now is that there are at least 7 differences between the two bills that have to be reconciled before it goes to Trump for his signature, and a couple of them are significant. Bills have gotten to the conference committee and died for less than that. |
