Estate Tax aka Death Tax definition from IRS.gov:The Estate Tax is a tax on your right to transfer property at your death. It consists of an accounting of everything you own or have certain interests in at the date of death (Refer to Form 706 (PDF)). The fair market value of these items is used, not necessarily what you paid for them or what their values were when you acquired them. The total of all of these items is your "Gross Estate." The includible property may consist of cash and securities, real estate, insurance, trusts, annuities, business interests and other assets.
Over at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum writes a piece titled "Tax Cut Deal Wildly Popular", where he shows the same graph I used yesterday taken from the ABC News/Washington Post poll showing support for specific components on the tax deal negotiated between Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans.
Drum then asks what is going on? He seems confused that the payroll tax cut garnered so much less support than the increased exemption on the estate tax (which is set at $5 million in the new tax deal).
He sees possible answers to his own question:
Possible answers: (a) people don't really understand that cutting payroll taxes means they'll see an immediate increase in their take home pay, (b) people associate payroll taxes so strongly with Social Security solvency that they don't want to cut them, (c) people fantastically overestimate how likely they are to have a $5 million estate when they die, (d) lots of people have a strong instinctive view that people should be able to pass on their wealth to their kids no matter how much it is, (e) people are just generally confused about all this stuff and it's hopeless to try and figure out what's really going on.
The majority of his "possible answers" seem to stem from his own inability to understand how liberals could be in the minority in their thinking and that people are too slow witted to truly understand the "progressive" thinking.
With that said, finally, a far left liberal lists the reason most Americans do not agree with the death tax and are supportive of increasing the exemption to the highest possible number if the whole tax the dead concept won't be scrapped.
Credit where it is due though, at least Drum did add the correct answer into the equation, much to the dismay and anger of other liberals.
How difficult is it to understand that people work their whole lives chasing the American dream in order to live well and be able to pass it on to their children/family?
The majority of the money millionaires or billionaires have, was either worked for and taxed already or someone in their families had worked for it and had it taxed already, so instinctively Americans wince at the thought of stealing from the dead simply because they died and had money when they did.
So, the answer is (d) lots of people have a strong instinctive view that people should be able to pass on their wealth to their kids no matter how much it is.....
Tell me how hard is it for far left liberals to understand the words "their wealth" and "their kids", words Drum used in his possible answers, are the key words and the reason the polling is showing support for the higher exemption?
Perhaps it is Drum and his far left brethren that "don't understand" and are "confused about all this stuff."
Americans aren't as gung-ho about class warfare as so-called progressives are.
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