[tony69]

By “raising death taxes”, I meant comprehensively, eliminating loopholes, as the sources I linked discuss more at length.

Re: irrevocable trust, a cursory search revealed no legitimate use case imo, all use cases I see are proxies to skirt taxes or hide income/wealth. What would you consider a legitimate use case for one?

Your point re: case law is well taken, but per [2] up until a few decades ago there was a cat-and-mouse game between laws and tricks regarding inheritance wealth transfer. This stopped and it’s easier than ever to transfer > 10M tax free at or death, which has massive implications for wealth inequality.

That said I agree it’s extremely unlikely and have no hope that any of this will change.

[jeffreyrogers]

> What would you consider a legitimate use case for one?

Setting aside money to pay for a relative who can't provide for themselves, protecting assets if you are professional who faces high chance of being sued (e.g. surgeon), providing for children from a first marriage if you get married and predecease your second spouse.

[BugsJustFindMe]

> Setting aside money to pay for a relative who can't provide for themselves

Wealth transfer.

> providing for children from a first marriage if you get married and predecease your second spouse

Wealth transfer.

> protecting assets if you are professional who faces high chance of being sued

Dodging responsibility for professional malpractice?