Featured Republicans kicking the middle-class (opposing Death Tax)

With the repeal of the Estate tax, the Capital Gains tax would and should return to inherited assets, and then the middle-class would start paying taxes on inheritance. The call to end the "Death Tax" amounts to a call to reduce taxes on the rich and raise taxes on the middle class -- and is another black eye for the GOP when it comes to public perception that the GOP doesn't care about working people.

You assess the capital gains at the time of sale of the asset. As it is now, you just pay capital gains on appreciation since inheritance (since the basis was adjusted when the Estate tax was applied). Without the Estate tax, you'd pay capital gains from appreciation since the deceased originally acquired the asset. The Estate tax eliminated inheritance taxes on the middle class and ended the nigh impossible burden of determining the original basis (meaning you'll over-pay capital gains taxes).

At the current rate, the Estate tax for $100 million estate would be 40% of $89.1 million.

 

The estate tax was repealed for one year, 2010. The Capital Gains tax did kick in for people who inherited estates. And, also notice, the repeal didn't stick. You can find where yourself.

 

The one year the Estate Tax was repealed, inheritance was subject to the Capital Gains tax based on the increase in value from when grandma originally bought her house or stocks. Congress did provide a stepped up basis, essentially a $1.3 million capital gains exemption (which is worth a lot less than the current $10.9 Estate tax exemption for long-held assets, to heirs). The repeal of the Estate Tax didn't get rid of taxes on inheritance, it just introduced the nightmare figuring out the basis of inherited property. (It would also be grossly unfair not tax tax huge inherited capital gains, profit, when working people pay a lot of taxes.)

People who want to get rid of the "estate tax" don't know what they're talking about (Republicans often don't know what they're talking about, which is why the Republican party is so ineffective at promoting conservative ideals. Democrats may be generally dumber, but they do have smarter overlords.)

 

You quoted an article saying "Significantly, the bill keeps in place a provision called “stepped up basis” that allows capital gains to escape taxation if passed to heirs." The article didn't say how much the basis was stepped up. I did tell you. You're welcome.

 

Would you keep your word and go away! You are factually wrong. And, what makes that doubly bad is that it's on a basic fact that you could easily verify if you knew now to use a search engine.

 

When you're done celebrating your ignorance with ITL. Go get some self-respect.

 

I'm all for that. But, anyone who wants that should start with incremental steps to reducing government to constitutional limits. It's counter-productive, as I argued in the OP, for Republicans to push for the repeal of the Estate tax. That does nothing to reduce the scope of government, and instead would just exposes the middle-class to nightmarish-to-figure capital gains taxes on inherited estates, all the while driving people from the Republican party to perceive the party as not caring about the working class.

Pavlov shouldn't have harassed a dog for his experiment. He could have just used Republicans and Democrats to demonstrated the mindless conditioned response. I say "Death tax" you say "punishing success" without a single thought needed for that response.

The estate tax doesn't exist to punish success. It exists as a reasonable substitute for capital gains tax on investment income for the federal government to have revenue.

 

Obama being 'sneaky' in push to up death tax

The neoconservative Christian website One New Now, in supporting the Republican war against the middle-class, continues to run articles against the Estate Tax, the repeal of which will increased taxes on the middle-class and raise the complexity of tax return.

In the latest article, Obama is being accused of being sneaky to raise the "Death Tax". The article complains, the "Treasury Department recently released regulations to limit the ability of families to use valuation discounts to reduce their death tax liability."

"Valuation discounts" means FRAUD. It's lying about the value of assets, claiming they're worth less than they are actually worth, so there's less taxes on those assets. One New New is whining that the government is trying to make fraud harder.

If you inherent IBM stock, we can look at the stock price to see how much its worth. The market value is easily determined. But, what if it's something like land, where the market value is not so easily determined. Some lawyers have set up contrivances far more complex than the value of land to obfuscate the value of assets. The government is just trying to make it harder to lie about the value of assets -- good for them.