Please die Mom and Dad. Die before the end of the year.


Estate tax playing unheralded role in revenue struggle

President Barack Obama won re-election in large part by calling for shifting more of the tax burden to higher-income people. The tax on inherited wealth – the estate tax – inevitably will play a role in getting to that goal since only wealthier people have taxable estates.

Yet the estate tax hasn’t figured prominently in Obama’s public pitches on tax equity. For example, Obama didn't mention the estate tax on Monday in his campaign-style speech in Redford, Mich., or in his weekly radio address in which he said, “We’re going to have to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay higher tax rates.”

And he made only one fleeting reference to the estate tax during his three debates with Republican opponent Mitt Romney, who proposed eliminating the estate tax. That has long been a Republican goal and one which they achieved for just one year, 2010 – as part of the 2001-03 tax reform bills.

The estate tax has been sort of a poor stepchild to the Bush tax cuts. It doesn’t get a lot of attention,” said Mike Lapham, project director of Responsible Wealth, a group organizing a push for a higher estate tax than Obama or congressional Republicans want.

At a time when Congress is searching for new revenue, there is revenue at stake here and it isn’t trivial.

If Congress doesn’t change the law, next year the top estate tax rate increases from 35 percent to 55 percent and it will be imposed on estates of more than $1 million, rather than on estates over $5.08 million as it now is.



If the currently scheduled estate tax increase takes effect, the revenue from it would be $37.6 billion in 2013 and $62 billion by 2019, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

Obama has put an estate tax offer on the table. In his fiscal year 2013 budget plan, he proposed a less burdensome alternative to the steep tax increase which takes effect Jan. 1. The president wants the tax to revert to what it was in 2009: a 45 percent tax rate, with the first $3.5 million of the estate exempted. His plan would raise about $20 billion in 2013 and $31.5 billion by 2019 – roughly half of the revenue raised by allowing the currently scheduled estate tax increase to occur.

Obama is getting some prodding from some of his own supporters to go further. On Tuesday a group of wealthy progressives organized by Lapham’s Responsible Wealth group – including former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard mutual fund empire and Dr. Richard Rockefeller, great-grandson of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller – urged Congress to enact a bigger estate tax than Obama wants.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/201...uggle?lite

Good luck

The estate tax is Warren Buffett's real goal. Why? Two reasons.

1. The primary way small business owners deal with the tax is to buy life insurance policies whose proceeds fund it. Berkshire Hathaway is an insurance company.
2. The secondary way, for families of small business owners who do not buy sufficient life insurance to cover the tax, is to sell the business. Berkshire Hathaway has grown by acquiring such family businesses for pennies on the dollar.

When Warren Buffett says that something is good for the US, he means it is good for Warren Buffett.

By the way, the estate tax has never produced--and will never produce--enough revenues to make any noticeable blip in the budget deficit. At most it's been on the order of $30-50 billion compared to a $3 trillion budget and $1 trillion plus deficit. This is strictly about class warfare and not about budget balancing.

2 wars still haven't been paid for. Decisions have consequences.

(12-27-2012 08:16 AM)firmbizzle Wrote:  2 wars still haven't been paid for. Decisions have consequences.

(12-27-2012 08:16 AM)firmbizzle Wrote:  2 wars still haven't been paid for.

And that's a tiny, tiny part of the problem.
I don't agree with the wars, but they're not the primary--or even a primary--driver of the fiscal problem.

Leftists despise property rights, they see it as the collectives property.

(12-27-2012 09:13 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-27-2012 08:16 AM)firmbizzle Wrote:  2 wars still haven't been paid for.

And that's a tiny, tiny part of the problem.
I don't agree with the wars, but they're not the primary--or even a primary--driver of the fiscal problem.

$4 trillion is tiny?

Instead of worrying about this...you should be worrying about your own tax return. If you're married and in the middle class you're likely to get killed by the AMT if something is not agreed to.

It's $1,500 for me.

(12-27-2012 09:36 AM)firmbizzle Wrote:  

(12-27-2012 09:13 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-27-2012 08:16 AM)firmbizzle Wrote:  2 wars still haven't been paid for.

And that's a tiny, tiny part of the problem.
I don't agree with the wars, but they're not the primary--or even a primary--driver of the fiscal problem.

$4 trillion is tiny?

Compared to the size of the problem, pretty much so.
And the cost of the wars is nothing close to $4 trillion by any reasonable reckoning. To get even remotely close to that number you have to include a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the wars.
Blaming this on the wars is a dishonest and disingenuous attempt to shift blame from the true causes.

(12-27-2012 09:49 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  Instead of worrying about this...you should be worrying about your own tax return. If you're married and in the middle class you're likely to get killed by the AMT if something is not agreed to.

It's $1,500 for me.

It's your patriotic duty to pay taxes.

I think the term you're looking for is "fair share".

Looks like all the grand kids are going to be Beneficiaries of Trusts that I'm going to be drafting this Afternoon.

(12-27-2012 10:29 AM)Smaug Wrote:  I think the term you're looking for is "fair share".

And clearly, my fair share should be a higher percentage than Mitt Romney's!

cry me a f'n river

(12-27-2012 11:41 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(12-27-2012 10:29 AM)Smaug Wrote:  I think the term you're looking for is "fair share".

And clearly, my fair share should be a higher percentage than Mitt Romney's!

Take it up with the father of the fiscal cliff:

Hardly. He had nothing to do with the AMT law.

No, but the whole package was his baby.

(12-27-2012 12:23 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  Hardly. He had nothing to do with the AMT law.

Yeah, but if you're worried about AMT, then you're rich enough to "pay a little more."

Damn 1%ers

(12-27-2012 11:41 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(12-27-2012 10:29 AM)Smaug Wrote:  I think the term you're looking for is "fair share".

And clearly, my fair share should be a higher percentage than Mitt Romney's!

Possibly. Why not?

Actually, you and Romney should both pay lower tax rates. But you should both pay it over a broader definition of income. That's going to hit him a lot harder than it's going to hit you.