| > My father always said that taxes are a problem of the rich. Middle class and below rarely complain about them. If your family is moving around money like that to avoid taxes, then you are a lucky and/or wealthy person! Your father is simply wrong. It can, and is done in my family to avoid losing out on university, rent, and health insurance subsidies that only apply to the poorest segment of society. By moving our assets around, the poorest members of the family can continue to receive them all the while effectively being slightly over this treshold. There is much to gain from creative accounting for the poor in countries that provide assistance to the poor by making one appear poorer than one is. > Silly? Yes, I agree. I favour about 50% inheritance tax with almost zero minimum. Inheritance is fuel for the fire of income inequality. Families create dynasties by avoiding inheritance tax. Most highly industrialised, wealthy countries would have much less income inequality with vastly higher inheritance taxes. The problem is that it is very easy to avoid it in a number of ways such as simply creating a shell company jointly with one's heirs and then donating the assets to the company; the heir then becomes the sole owner of the company after death, as if such taxes were to apply to stakes in a company, then companies would go defunct upon the deaths of some of their owners. Tax laws in many ways rely on citizens not being clever enough to exploit the numerous loopholes, — but then again “idiot tax” is not something I'm entirely opposed to. |