Re:Natural Wine, Inherited Money, and the Delusions of the “...
by lelanthran on Thursday April 14, 2022 @04:39PM
(#31032972)
> Personally, I support high inheritance taxes to balance things out a bit. I think it's healthier for everyone.
The difference it will make is so small you probably couldn't measure it. All that would happen is that it would apply to a handful of people each year who die very suddenly. The rich who grow old would simply transfer everything to their children before they die.
Even worse, this opens up a ton of loopholes that would only be exploitable by the very rich[1], leaving the middle-class paying the largest amount of taxes (again). Nailing down all the special exceptions in the inheritance tax code will probably cost more than you'd receive in inheritance taxes.
Taxing people simply because "they didn't work for it" is just another puritanical way of trying to punish people who were luckier than others. Doing it via inheritance taxes is especially puritanical, because it makes a mockery of fundamental property laws as well.
You may as well just proclaim "to each according to his need". At least that's an honest statement about the intentions behind the tax.
[1] Trust funds are already one of the ways to dodge inheritance taxes, as the "fund" doesn't necessarily hold cash. For example it could be holding shares in a private company that pays dividends. While tax authorities can liquidate any shares held in a public exchange to settle the taxes, they can't do the same with shares held in private companies[2].
[2] This is because there may be no willing seller at the price being asked. If high inheritance taxes becomes the norm, you can bet that every shareholder in a private company is going to regard a tax authorities need to sell the shares as a jackpot day, and buy accordingly for pennies on the dollar, at which point the taxes on the proceeds are going to be close to nothing anyway, and may not even be owed anymore.
The difference it will make is so small you probably couldn't measure it. All that would happen is that it would apply to a handful of people each year who die very suddenly. The rich who grow old would simply transfer everything to their children before they die.
Even worse, this opens up a ton of loopholes that would only be exploitable by the very rich[1], leaving the middle-class paying the largest amount of taxes (again). Nailing down all the special exceptions in the inheritance tax code will probably cost more than you'd receive in inheritance taxes.
Taxing people simply because "they didn't work for it" is just another puritanical way of trying to punish people who were luckier than others. Doing it via inheritance taxes is especially puritanical, because it makes a mockery of fundamental property laws as well.
You may as well just proclaim "to each according to his need". At least that's an honest statement about the intentions behind the tax.
[1] Trust funds are already one of the ways to dodge inheritance taxes, as the "fund" doesn't necessarily hold cash. For example it could be holding shares in a private company that pays dividends. While tax authorities can liquidate any shares held in a public exchange to settle the taxes, they can't do the same with shares held in private companies[2].
[2] This is because there may be no willing seller at the price being asked. If high inheritance taxes becomes the norm, you can bet that every shareholder in a private company is going to regard a tax authorities need to sell the shares as a jackpot day, and buy accordingly for pennies on the dollar, at which point the taxes on the proceeds are going to be close to nothing anyway, and may not even be owed anymore.