A recent email from the Left Coast:

From: "nicholas langhorne" <armyreject@hotmail.com>

Subject: Estate Taxes

I find in interesting that you would post a chart detailing the percentages that must be paid of a gross estate, when in the previous paragraph you said that the tax rate is essentially always near the maximum. You are spin doctor. I commend you on your efforts to try and portray the estate tax as something deceitful but i assure you it is not. I am quite sure that your comments reflect only how you feel about taxes that would have to be paid on your own estate which is likely over the minimum of 2 million.

I will leave you with one final question, how do you plan to substitute the income already derived from this tax? In my own state of Washington we have a state estate tax and it brings in over 100 million annually, Im sure it is much more when you take into account the higher percentage (ie. 19% WA, and 46% Federal) and higher population of the nation. Where will this money come from, taxing the already over taxed middle and lower classes? Save me the responses about small businesses and farming families who will have to liquidate to pay the tax, its a lie with deductions as they now sit.

Comrade Nicholas:

You are entitled to your misguided opinions; but you do need to get your facts right if you intend to make anything resembling an intelligent argument.

The estate tax rate schedule that I have on my website is not for gross estates. While probate and attorney charges are routinely calculated based on gross estate values, the estate tax is only assessed on the net taxable estate, which is the gross value reduced by such things as liabilities, charitable bequests and final medical and funeral costs.

Also, I can assure you that whether or not I or anyone in my family would have to pay estate tax is absolutely 100% irrelevant to my opposition to it. Confiscating a person's wealth after they die is extremely evil and immoral and is nothing less than grave robbery. It is just as wrong to do this to someone who has been financially successful in his lifetime as it is for those that don't have as much.

As I have pointed out ad infinitum, the estate tax is a key plank of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto as a means of preventing too much private ownership of property and expanding the power and size of the almighty central government. No true believer in capitalism and the sanctity of private property rights can support the concept of wealth confiscation.

Justifying immoral actions for the sake of money is a slippery slope that we all should avoid. If it's okay to steal a big percentage of a person's estate just because the government needs the money, why can't other such actions be just as valid? For example, think of all of the money our government would save in Medicare and Social Security costs each year if we were to just euthanize everyone on their 65th birthday. Those savings would so dwarf the haul from estate taxes as to possibly make estate taxes inconsequential.

Thanks for writing and sharing your wisdom from out there on the Left Coast.

Kerry Kerstetter

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 8/17/2006 02:24:00 PM Send this post: