And 'wealth' isn't all gold buried in the back yard. Its also investments in businesses (either stocks or directly) as a corporation or even a proprietorship. Who runs the restaurant after you die? The government? Preposterous.
You could own 5 restaurants of that size and not pay estate tax.
[1] http://sellingrestaurants.com/news/how-much-is-a-restaurant-...
On your last point- a traditional corporation won't fail if one person dies as the issue of ownership is inherently divested from any individual person. Stocks are one of the easiest assets to liquidate on this planet- I'm not seeing an issue there. The restaurant? It would be sold. If I have a family member who I actually think could run it adequately they would be able to purchase it like anybody else and I would encourage them to do so while I was still alive.
More Polyanna thinking that anything you can make up in a minute, won't be gamed to death by anybody and everybody. Why? Because almost everybody wants to increase the chances of their children/heirs succeeding. Its built into the species.
Obviously such a system would need significant safeguards- this is something we're both fully aware of as intelligent human beings. Mentioning them now is just a strawman unless stated as the overall opinion "it's 100% impossible to stop abuse".
On your last point, I find it silly to assert that a belief in humanities ability to overrule animal instincts is somehow "Pollyanna thinking". Everything we've achieved thus far as a species has been based on that belief.
But everything in the tax law is a testament to how this is playing out in reality. Try as you might, 10,000 lawyers will push their pointy noses through loopholes to benefit their clients, which is everybody.
[1] http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employ...
Just because something is idealistic doesn't mean it's incorrect.
> You trust the govt to spend your wealth, more than say a relative?
Dear God yes.
Because, their parents earned it. People slog their bones off, make a lot of sacrifices and after a life time of work get to such a position.
If some body's parents doesn't want to leave a inheritance, or don't to earn or whatever. I would leave that at calling it as their personal decision.
>>It's absolutely a lottery.
Its really strange to see the way you like to put it like absolutely no real effort was involved in building that wealth at all.
Their PARENTS earned it. Not the kids. That's my entire point- I don't think children should be entitled to assets their parents "slogged their bones off for" simply because they won the lottery of being born with those parents.
You disagree and that's fine, I was merely presenting the other side of this debate (and the one I personally sit on the side of).
If there is no incentive to get rich, or benefit by making money over a long term for you or your descendants the very motivation to contribute something valuable and make money along the way, goes away. So after a time you will be left wondering why a few capable people aren't sacrificing their lives making up for every body else.
Welcome to Soviet Russia!
Large estate taxation schemes always need to carve out exceptions for ag and then the loophole-thread pulling begins.
Hitting all your points in order:
1) 1 million dollars is a lot of money to come out of nowhere. It's simply dishonest to pretend that isn't a life changing amount for a middle class family. At the very least it's going to be like you said- modest home paid off(100-500k), car loans all paid off(50k), and student loans paid off(300k if your kids went to expensive schools and you have 3 of them). I'm really not seeing why anyone should be entitled to never work again simply because their parents made a lot of money. (With that said, my parents didn't choose to bury themselves in debt and could have retired instantly if they received this inheritance when combined with the investments they already had)
2) It's absolutely a lottery. Trying to cloud this issue with "oh well the parents potentially weren't there as much and that emotional cost is easily worth a few million" is disingenuous. It makes the assumption that money has no influence on the quality of the child's upbringing and "time spent with kids/day" is the only metric worth mentioning.
3) Being taxed when you're dead isn't a tax to me. At all. I understand this is a personal opinion but you should have the same understanding regarding your own opinion here. When I'm dead I no longer feel entitled to anything I gained in my lifetime- it's not like I'm ever going to use it again. I also don't feel my kids are entitled to it just because they happened to be born (effectively via lottery) to me.
To suffice:
Let the fruit of my efforts benefit society/humanity as a whole. It was my goal in life and ought to be in death.