[sielskr]

When I saw "the Deaths of Four People Cost the U.S. Government $6.5 Billion" I imagined the government taking 6.5 billion from taxpayers and spending it extremely inefficiently. But I am not a journalist living in New York City (if the blogger wrote the headline or an editor for the New York Times if an editor wrote the headline of the blog post)! What the headline is really talking about is the government's failing to collect death taxes that it could have collected if Congress had voted differently.

So apparently according to this journalist every time the government fails to collect X dollars that it could have collected through the legitimate operation of elections, Congressional votes, etc, that failure "costs" the government X dollars. I am having trouble escaping the implication that the headline writer believes that any money that Congress could have voted to collect rightfully belongs to the government, and if the money remains in private hands, maybe that is worth a blog post in the New York Times!

[jbooth]

Hi, can we please stop using the phrase "death tax"? It's called estate tax. Legally. Calling it a death tax does not change any of the underlying mechanics or reasons to support/oppose it.

Signed, George Orwell

[naner]

Death tax is a term introduced by Republicans wishing to change the public perception of estate taxes. Obviously an effective move. Apparently it is hard to get people to vote against an estate tax.

It is scary how effectively Republicans are able to manipulate language and steer political discussion. The Democrats suck pretty badly at this.

[raganwald]

Calling it a death tax does not change any of the underlying mechanics

Yes.

or reasons to support/oppose it.

Obviously, no :-)

That's why you're calling for people to stop using this emotionally loaded and inaccurate phrase. Calling it something it's not absolutely changes the reasons to oppose it, which is why we also have phrases like "Death Panels" and "Baby Killers" to describe Canada's (obviously horrific) health care system.

[sielskr]

Sure, but I did it because the OP did it. Also, there's a good chance that Orwell would have just as much of a problem with "estate tax" as with "death tax", "estate tax" being the choice of people with an agenda after all.

[jbooth]

It's taxing estates, not deaths. Every other tax is named after what it taxes. Income tax, sales tax, gasoline tax.. get the picture?

And that person with an agenda was Teddy Roosevelt who implemented it almost 100 years ago, back in simpler times when the lying in politics was mostly about people's mothers' moralities and lineages.

[eru]

There was lots of corruption back in the day.

[brown9-2]

Let's say you are running a business which sells FooWidgets and you charge $100 for them.

Then for the holidays, you decide to only sell them for $50 each.

Doesn't the $50 in savings which you are passing on to your customers also represent $50 in potential revenue that you are not collecting, since you decided to be generous?

[jerf]

It's not that simple; you have to take into account the customers who would not have purchased at $100 but did at $50. Failing to account for price sensitivity is a major elementary economic mistake.

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Price_Theory/PThy_Cha...

[eftpotrm]

Perhaps, but I doubt many choose to time their death to minimise estate taxes ;-)

[jerf]

I was only talking about how the metaphor is actually radically more complicated that the thing it is putatively explaining. People mostly aren't timing their deaths (though history has shown it isn't quite the zero you might expect: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8158), and government taxing simply occurs, there's no customer participation. The metaphor, by introducing those concepts, actually goes wrong.

[arethuza]

I am not an accountant - but that scenario sounds more like a decrease in revenue rather than an increase in costs.