Why is paying estate tax worse that paying income tax? In both cases, the person (or company) doing the paying has already paid taxes on the money they accumulated. The only difference is that for income tax, the person getting the money is actually doing something to earn it, while for estate tax they are doing nothing.

It seems odd that if I die and give my kids millions for nothing that shouldn't be taxed, but if I decide to hire them while I'm still living and pay them for their work, that is ok to tax.

But sunshine, amirite?

Yeah, I suppose that does suck if you're in a high income AND salestax state.

ANTIFA EXPOSED looooooolllll always delivers

I have mixed feelings on the estate tax because it is directly punitive. I’m not saying it is a bad thing but the money has already landed and it seems a bit opportunistic to prey on death.

That’s my rational opinion. That being said I’m not for the removal of the estate tax at all.

What taxes aren't "punitive" in that sense?

How is the estate tax meaningfully different than taxes on large gifts, from the POV of the recipient?

Vox has a run down for the best case reason for the GOP tax plan

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...full-expensing

I guess it depends on what you mean by this statement. If you mean that relatively few people in USA#1 would accumulate $11 million without the benefit of a tax structure that favors the rich (not terribly progressive, favorable treatment of cap gains, etc.), then I guess I agree.

If you mean that very few people in USA#1 accumulate $11 million w/o directly exploiting the working poor like some robber baron, I don't agree.

I'm not sure what it says about our economic system, but there are a ton of white collar "service" professionals like doctors and lawyers who accumulate something like $11 million by age 60-65, and they didn't accumulate that amount of wealth by employing people in sweatshops or paying less than a living wage to tons of workers. For most of the lawyers, at least, it would be more accurate to say that they acquired their money by affixing themselves parasitically to large corporations or absurdly wealthy individuals. I guess you could say that those clients are only able to pay the lawyer's rates because they have profited off the backs of the working poor, but that's at least one step removed.

I disagree. I think it is more likely that there's some offsetting factor in the Japan example than that it is proof that there is no link between deficits and inflation. I only have time to skim that article, but it seems to me the premise is basically, "We don't know what's going on here." That does not disprove things, unless you can negate for other factors we haven't previously analyzed well.

If we continue to discuss this more in depth, I'll read that more closely when I have time.

But we're not talking about deficit spending here, we're talking about tax cuts adding to the deficit. So we're taking the current level of spending (actually, likely cutting it somewhat) and just taking in less revenue to increase the deficit. That, analytically, seems like it almost HAS to cause inflation. If you're talking about the type of deficit spending (like say a big infrastructure package) that is likely to stimulate the economy, then I would agree it does not directly cause inflation in many cases.

Going to be totally straight up and admit I didn't read these - no time right now, but I'll try later if we continue this discussion.

Good video - but it seems to apply to the more stimulative type of deficit spending, not tax cuts for the wealthy.

I don't think that's it at all. I'm going to bite my tongue here to an extent, but to be clear you just accused by Dad of thinking of black people by the n-word, right? Understatement of the day: I don't appreciate that. While he and I have some debates about politics, and his degree of awareness on racial issues may not be anywhere near where most of ours is on this forum, he's not a closet racist. I've been able to move his views slowly toward the left over time on a variety of political issues, including his attitudes toward Black Lives Matter (he used to say he was pro-reform on criminal justice/cops killing people, but didn't like the methods/etc of BLM... we're getting there slowly).

He's a recovering Fox News viewer. I've even got him watching a little MSNBC now.

Anyway, the quote of his I posted really comes back to simplistic political thinking. "At least someone gets something." Something is better than nothing. He's thinking of it like there's a big pile of available money there, at least they didn't hoard it all and gave some to some citizens. Obviously that's not how it works, but that's far more likely his underlying thought process than "Glad the lazy n-words didn't get it."

No one? When Sillicon Valley created an entire multi billion dollar tech industry with high paying jobs, tell me how it took advantage of working poor people again?

No society builds itself from just working poor people, it takes a lot of investment capital and taxes to fund those social programs. It goes both ways.

Computers, smartphones, etc. are largely manufactured in Chinese sweatshops. That's how the business is built on the backs of the poor.

Just call it the aristocrat tax and think of it as preventing (or at least attempting to prevent) a landed gentry.

Paging Thomas Piketty. Thomas Piketty to the Tax Reform thread, please.

I don't mind the estate tax.

Idiot sons and daughters normally just horde the money without redeploying the capital in productive endeavors. First generation wealth was accumulated through risk and investment of capital. 2nd generation typically don't and aren't good enough to advance further what the 1st generation did.

Allowing Steve Job's kid to horde 13 billion or whatever isn't going to do the world any better. He'll just put it in a mutual fund and park it there forever.

In the USA, how were the poor taken advantage of?

And in China, poor them, from farming rice fields in the 70s to the world's 2nd largest economy and 2nd most powerful country on the planet. I will shed a few tears for them.

Why would the American poor need to be exploited for the point to stand? China has built its economy through de facto slave labor, so I'm not certain what objection you are even raising?

Sorry it's more of a general observation. I'm not accusing your dad of using the n-word. It's like when dvaut goes off on some tangent about something I say. I don't take it personally anymore because I realize he's just using it as a launching pad to make some point.

However I think you're probably wrong in general that "At least someone gets something." isn't really "at least it's not going to welfare queens" on some conscious or subconscious level for most. It's the same theme that comes up over and over and over. The order of the line seems to be very important. Poor whites knew they were at the back of the white line, but at least they were ahead of most minorities.

Even more middle class and upper middle class, there's this specter of Obama giving away the country to the poor (which = minorities for the most part in their minds). On one of these photo trips I go on, some old conservative dude was railing a little bit about the "gravy train". For some reason he felt the need to assure me he knew I wasn't on the gravy train.

Yeah dude - I'm on welfare paying $1500 to follow a pro photographer around. Conversely, I have seen the gravy train up close (welfare, section 8, food stamps, medicaid) - and it is anything but. I wouldn't wish it on most people. But in his mind is this picture of, let's be honest, minorities - sitting high on the hog with iPhones and Lexus's and milking the system. I have a feeling he's the kind who would much rather see a tax cut for the wealthy that's likely to barely affect him, than the money going to social services.

Your point is stupid.

lol do you get pissed off when you pay the tax on groceries or electronics or really anything that you buy?

Hasn't it also helped create a middle class in that country?

China added hundreds of million of Chinese workers to its middle class in about 2 decades, and many more are joining the ranks every year. The middle class is exploding and the economy is sitting at 11.2 trillion GDP.

If that is exploitation, China got a lot in return.

I spent all year making money, why should I give any to the government?

Yes, a relatively small number of Chinese are lucky enough to have lifestyles that Americans would consider middle class. It doesn't change the fact that their economy is built around exploiting cheap labor.

We don't pay taxes on those here nor cloths. Paying taxes is not one of the things in life that give me pleasure. Do I get pissed about it, no I don't let things like that get me upset, there is little I can do about it anyhow.