WILL the Post never stop talking drivel? Robert B. Ward says that New York's estate tax "could make the difference between passing a thriving business to one's heirs, or having to sell assets to pay millions in tax to Albany". What pitiably fatuous nonsense! He points out that Donald Trump, the takeoff for the piece, "made his start in a family real-estate concern here". Did "The Donald" have to wait for his father to die to get that business? No, he did not.
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Businesses pass from one generation to another during the life of the older generation, when they retire, not at death. What passes at death are houses, horses, art, antiques, stocks, bonds, and the whole panoply of artifacts of wealth that maintains divisions in society when some inherit millions and others are left to pay the debts of their impoverished parents. The dead have no rights, and if society decides, as a matter of public policy, that evening things up a bit between different segments of society by reducing inequality at death, so much the better. Estate tax is one of the best taxes we have, and it never applied to the poor or middle class, but only to the rich. It is being abolished by liars who misrepresent it as a tax that adversely affects everyone, when in reality the federal estate tax affected only heirs to estates of over $900,000! To make up the shortfall when estate taxes are eliminated, people who don't have $900,000 to spare, but are lucky to have two bucks to rub together before they get their check on payday, have to pay higher taxes! That is "tax equity" as the rich see things. But it's not the way any decent person sees things. (Responsive to “Winning Is Easy; N.Y. Taxes Are the Challenge", 4/15/04)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:32 PM