Redistribution of Wealth Tax

So you thought paying your income taxes was enough. It falls in the same category of you think because your name is on the mortgage, you own your house. Both of these concepts are fallacies. The government owns your house and it owns your estate.

You may have never missed a loan payment, you may have your mortgage paid off, but the roof over your head is never free and clear. Try not paying your property taxes (or even your homeowners association dues), and you will find your abode sold out from under you, irregardless your equity stake.

The big fight in congress now is over taxes. Some attention has been given to estate tax but not nearly enough. Even though neither of the proposed plans of $5 million/35% or $3.5 million/45% will affect me, I don't like the idea of double taxation.

By now you've seen the backandforth between Congressman Weiner and Megyn Kelly over "unearned income" and dead people. Thanks that spares me some typing.

Weiner used an example of a $1 million house that is "now worth " $10 million being passed on to heirs of the deceased. First he feels this $9 million paper gain is 45% owed the government after the $3.5 million exclusion. But isn't profit made only when an actual sale takes place? Who says the heirs want to sell this property? Maybe they want to use it as collateral and take out a loan against it. I mean wouldn't you rather pay 5% in interest every year, while having use of the full proceeds, instead of giving 45% of it away immediately? The same argument can be made for shares of stock or commercial real estate. What if the heirs want to use the installment method of paying taxes on any earned gains, why do they have to lump off 45% immediately?

Some families who earn massive amounts don't carry life insurance, they consider their estates as the family life insurance policy. If you are the benefactor on a life insurance policy, those proceeds are non taxable. Why aren't estate proceeds?

Another flaw in this system is --at what point does the inheritance tax stop? Bernie Sanders as part of his anti tax extension filibuster used the Wal Mart estate as his example. The value of Sam Walton's estate was $60 Billion and yielded an estate tax of around $30 Billion. So his heirs should be good to go now with their share? Actually yes and actually no. What happens when they die? And let's just say their estates stay the same, $30 Billion. The government is going to want another 35-45% of the already once taxed estate. In a few generations it's going to be as if Sam Walton never existed, his fortune is going to be used to pay "learning disabled" welfare brats, so their irresponsible non working breeder parents can sit home and eat KFC. This isn't taxation of "unearned income" it's redistribution of wealth, plain and simple. And it's vote getting insurance for the commucrats.

Estate tax can be a good thing, because nobody wants one individual to finally amass all of the wealth, but really now, how likely is that from actually happening? The US of A isn't the world's first rodeo. Through the ages there have been rich folk before. King Solomon was pretty well off i hear, and his kinsmen don't have a lock down on us. Besides competition and wars are pretty good antidotes to keep such a thing from ever happening.

One of the lessons I've learned during my travels abroad,-- what we think or do in our country doesn't make it so in another country. Our nation is not the universe. The Left wants us to believe their laws will stop us from being a nation of greed, in a world of need. But by regulating us, how is that stopping someone outside our borders? (This whole line of thinking can be applied to the Cap and Trade argument too.)

That statement should shoot down the Left's argument of their (feigned) fears of wealth ending in the hands of one person. What they enact within our borders doesn't prevent any one outside our laws from doing such a thing.

The Saudi Royal family comes to mind as the group with the biggest head start on that road to ownership of everything, how does Congressman Weiner feel about that I wonder, better yet what's he going to do about it? .............I thought so.

Steve