Making the rich richer

[Henry C.K. Liu]

The current estate tax is toothless.  There are all kinds of ways to avoid it,
such as setting up a simple trust.  Since the estate tax does not stop the
rich from getting richer, repealing it will not make the rich richer, except
it saves them minor legal and accountant fees.  Inheritance rights are part
and parcel of property rights.  They are the foundation of capitalism and they
should be attacked frontally, not nibbled at around meaningless taxes.  The
problem of attacking only the rich under a system of proerty rights is that it
is self defeating.

Here is a popular joke on populism during the Chinese revolution:
In an public rally for revolutionart awareness, the visiting party organizer
shouted:
"When a person owns two houses, he should keep one and give the other away!"
Enthusiastic cheers for 10 minutes.
"When a person has two ox carts, he should give one away!"
Cheers for 10 minutes.
"When a person has two chickens, he should give one away!"
Dead silence.
The organizer turned and asked the local cadre what happen.
"They all have two chickens."

Being rich is relative.

Henry C.K. Liu

Doug Henwood wrote:


> Marta Russell wrote:
>
> >The LA Times (Sunday) Business section ran a column by James Flanigan
> >stating that the Congress intends to eliminate the estate tax. Jon Kyl
> >(R-Ariz) and Bob Kerrey(D-Neb) have proposed a bill to repeal the tax
> >(now at 37% of inheritances over $650,000).
> >
> >Someone interviewed for the article points out that abolishing the tax
> >would further encourage maldistribution of income and wealth, but
> >Flanigan argues that the current U.S. tax is too little to do the job of
> >equalizing opportunity(that's a new one) and for that and other reasons
> >(small business needs repeal) supports the repeal.  He is a trickle down
> >kind of guy, don't we all know that would spur more economic growth??
> >There are so many inanities in the piece, I can't go thro them all. . .
> >
> >Does anyone remember if this was proposed by the 104th Congress in the
> >Contract on America, or is this is a new one?
>
> This is a long-standing Republican obsession. They never call it an estate
> tax, either - they call it a "death tax." It's also often called a
> voluntary tax, since most sophisticated rich people can evade it. That
> porousness is one reason it's very difficult to get good data on the role
> of inheritance in perpetuating wealth inequality.
>
> Doug