Since most people who do any savings do so through their employers 401K, this four year old Frontline piece should be an eyeopener on where the real theft is occurring:
$3million split three ways is still enough for a 40-yr to not have to work again. That’s $1mil per kid.
I’ve figured with my current lifestyle, if I had $500k in savings I could retire tomorrow. Unfortunately that’s a lot more than what I have, so I’m about 11-12 years away at my current pace of saving and that figure lowering with age.
Then again I’m of the philosophy that the main value of money is security. Money can’t buy happiness but lack of money can buy unhappiness.
My own personal opinion is the $5mil limit is fine, then tax it like normal income, with one additonal exemption that a home’s estate tax can be deferred as long as the beneficiary lives in the home most of the time.
Yeah… more, actually.
None of that money Tim is talking about is currently taxed under the estate tax.
That seems to be the part that he is refusing to grasp. You’re fucking dead, you’re not getting taxed. Children who receive a very large windfall get taxed. Honestly, if we can’t tax the money left after someone passes away, what can we tax? There’s not a lot of more progressive taxes out there than the estate tax.
And you’re right on the money, @Ginger_Yellow. The US is already far too close to a plutocracy for my liking. Eliminating the estate tax is going to insure that it happens. Even more than it already is today, you will create a class of citizens that never have to work or labor based off of the fact that they own the capital that was passed down to them via their family. Instead, the vast majority of people will be working for them, in near perpetuity. That’s not the kind of society I want to live in, as it sounds an awful lot like neo-feudalism.
If even a few hundred thousand passes down to children tax-free, that is an absolutely life-changing windfall for much of lower and middle class America. My life and financials would be completely different if I never had a mortgage payment to worry about.
Yep, and the ever-increasing divide between the wealthy and the poor continues.
But under the Oregon rule, your kids will still get a full million untouched, then 84% of every million after that up to $5.5 million at which point another 35% goes to the feds, still leaving your kids 49% of every million above the $5.5 million.
Also in the scenario you lay out where you accumulate $2 million then end up with $1 million at death after paying for retirement, there is zero tax. The only way tax kicks in is if you have more than $1 million at death.
Here’s a chart of the net to your kids at different wealth levels (combined Oregon & Federal):
$1 million at death === $1 million to kids (11X median household net worth)
$2 million at death === $1.84 million to kids (20X median household net worth)
$5 million at death === $4.52 million to kids (50X median household net worth)
$9 million at death === $6.65 million to kids (74X median household net worth)
Nobody likes to pay taxes but the math is that the estate tax, even with Oregon’s added state level tax is not a harsh burden. We are currently running a deficit nationally and we have a whole bunch of things that would benefit the country to spend on like health care, infrastructure and education, and so we need tax revenue. Where is that money going to come from?
If you don’t want people with large estates taxed, then who do you want to tax? And you don’t get to say “well we shouldn’t spend so much” without specifying (at least in general terms) WHO gets cut and HOW MUCH.
US conservatives are anti-tax and often assume liberals are pro-tax but we aren’t. We are pro having enough revenue to do the necessary. And when raising that revenue it makes sense to asses who can best bear the burdens of paying for the costs of society. I favor a system of shared progressive taxation where everyone has at least some “skin in the game” but the heaviest numerical burdens fall on those with the greatest ability to pay, and that includes estates in the millions.
Some of you aren’t :)
Only the wealthiest estates pay the tax because it is levied only on the portion of an estate’s value that exceeds a specified exemption level — $5.49 million per person (effectively $10.98 million per married couple) in 2017.
Being able to pass down $11 million dollars to your kids is fucking plenty. If they can’t make due with fucking ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS, then they are useless garbage who really shouldn’t be given money at all.
You could always move out of Oregon before you die but then you’d likely have to start paying sales tax.
I know how a lot of Republicans would answer this question!
Actually, with regard to Oregon’s tax, we used to have an “Inheritance Tax” which was assessed on the individual inheritors, but since 2012 it’s an “Estate Tax” which is assessed on the decedent’s estate.
Now I don’t know all the particulars, not being a tax accountant, but I do believe that a more than $1 million net estate does have to pay some Oregon tax on the non-exempt amount, after things like funeral expenses, outstanding debt payments and such.
Not calling you out Clay…but is that tweet supposed to mean? That reads like something that belongs in the liberal lunacy thread.
Stymied by his failure to win congressional approval for his big-ticket promises like a repeal of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare reform, known as Obamacare, and a border wall with Mexico, Trump has turned to administrative action.
He has rolled back hundreds of rules and regulations, signed 47 executive orders and used a previously obscure legislative tool, the Congressional Review Act, 14 times to undo regulations passed in the final months of Obama’s presidency. The law had only been used once before, 16 years ago.
The Trump administration has withdrawn or delayed more than 800 Obama-era regulatory actions in its first six months.
And here I thought it’s only the left that practices the “cruel censorship of free speech. **”
Trump administration lawyers are demanding the private account information of potentially thousands of Facebook users in three separate search warrants served on the social media giant, according to court documents obtained by CNN.
The warrants specifically target the accounts of three Facebook users who are described by their attorneys as “anti-administration activists who have spoken out at organized events, and who are generally very critical of this administration’s policies.”
*I know it’s a popular whataboutism when bashing “liberals”, but I will refrain from going into a rant on that particular subject.
That was back when conservatives were… conservatives.
Though most supported censorship of things they disliked, so not even then really.
He’s one of the initial BLM founders. Click through and he follows up with data. It’s just a comparison important to his perspective, I suppose.
Yeah, even though reparations are never going to happen, you could imagine that the number involved would be huge.
Although the vote passed, America joined countries such as China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in opposing the move.
The Human Rights Council resolution condemned the “imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations”.
It attacked the use of execution against persons with “mental or intellectual disabilities, persons below 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the crime, and pregnant women”.
It also expressed “serious concern that the application of the death penalty for adultery is disproportionately imposed on women”.
The US supported two failed amendments put forward by Russia, which stated the death penalty was not necessarily “a human rights violation” and that it is not a form of torture, but can lead to it “in some cases”.
And it abstained on a “sovereignty amendment” put forward by Saudi Arabia, that stated “the right of all countries to develop their own laws and penalties”.
Edit: link to resolution
Edit 2: Countries who opposed: Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United States and the United Arab Emirates.