[gambiting]

Not related,but I would like to mention this regardless:

>>No party will suggest the rational solutions: if hard work makes us rich, let’s tax inheritance at 85%, so the children of rich men have to work hard too. But no: that would never do

I never understood this argument. I am not rich by any means,but why would my children have to pay 85% on things that I want to leave them?? It's idiotic - I worked hard to earn those things,why would the government want 85% of their value?? On what basis and logical reason? To make my children "less lazy" by doing so?? They can mind their own children - I will mind mine.

[gnaritas]

> but why would my children have to pay 85% on things that I want to leave them?? It's idiotic.

No, it's not idiotic. It's income to them they receive without working, it should be taxed higher because those who work for their money should not be taxed higher than those who simply have it given to them.

> I worked hard to earn those things,why would the government want 85% of their value??

Yes, and that's yours, not your children's. The only person you can give large sums of money to tax free is your spouse; to everyone else, that's new income and it should be taxed, and large sums should be taxed heavily because inherited wealth is anathema to democracy.

You can't have a functioning democracy and allow capital accumulation to the elite in such large sums that their children become kings with the power to buy politicians and affect law without having the benefit of having worked for that money and really understanding what it means to not be wealthy.

> On what basis and logical reason? To make my children "less lazy" by doing so??

No, to stop them from destroying society.

> They can mind their own children - I will mind mine.

You live in a community and it's not all about you and yours; try not thinking about yourself so much and look at the bigger picture. Inherited wealth is bad for society, earned wealth is good for society. You earned your money, keep it; your children should earn their own on their own.

[gambiting]

>>It's income to them they receive without working, it should be taxed higher because those who work for their money should not be taxed higher than those who simply have it given to them.

This literally does not make any sense. I paid tax on all those things. My children are using the benefits of my work, that is correct - but I paid my duties for the money I made.

>> without having the benefit of having worked for that money and really understanding what it means to not be wealthy.

So why don't we send everyone for a mandatory work in orphanages or homeless shelters for a couple months,if its about teaching people a lesson? Since when is it the governments job to make people " understand what it means to not be wealthy."?

>>inherited wealth is anathema to democracy.

So why don't we ban it altogether? Once you hit 18 years of age, you are given a government-built apartament, $1000 pocket money, and off you go, enjoy democracy. Meanwhile, if you die, all your possessions can go to the government who will make sure that your wealth is redistributed to the greatest benefit of the society. Sounds like the right kind of democracy to me.

[ForHackernews]

Wow, talk about black-and-white thinking.

Consider: There may be other alternatives that fall between the extremes of "My kids get all the free money I can give them!" and "The government should confiscate all possessions and give everyone a state-sponsored apartment."

[gambiting]

Yes, for me it's either no inheritance tax, or 100% inheritance tax. Anything in between doesn't make sense as it it completely arbitrary. Why 10%? Or 60%? Or 85%? If you support the notion that children should work for themselves, then don't let them inherit anything from their parents - in which case, the government has to provide at least a place to live in. If you don't support the notion of taxing inheritance(like I do) then you should support the idea of inheritance tax being 0. Again - no tax is being evaded here. A person who made that money/bought those things already paid the tax on them. The government got their share in this already.

[ForHackernews]

> Yes, for me it's either no inheritance tax, or 100% inheritance tax

Ok, well, I think that's a ludicrous position to take, and your views on this topic are unreasonable. All taxes are "completely arbitrary" in some sense. They're the result of compromises, political and economic pressures, and expressions of the values of a society.

I agree with the parent comment that estates in excess of some amount (maybe one or two million dollars, inflation-indexed) should be taxed at an extremely high rate to discourage the development of aristocratic dynasties.

[gnaritas]

> Yes, for me it's either no inheritance tax, or 100% inheritance tax.

Then you need to mature your point of view because the world isn't so absurdly simple and black and white.

No thinking person can look at this country (U.S.) today and say accumulated wealth isn't causing a whole host of problems. The wealth inequality in this country is bad and needs to be addressed. The rich are out of control.

[JoeAltmaier]

Yeah but taxes aren't why. Its the rigged financial markets that have swiftly vacuumed up all the money and put it into the hands of those that - guess what - handle money.

[dragonwriter]

> Yes, for me it's either no inheritance tax, or 100% inheritance tax. Anything in between doesn't make sense as it it completely arbitrary.

The distinction between inheritances and other forms of income in tax treatment is at least as arbitrary. If we tax income in general, why should income from inheritances be treated specially?

[viraptor]

If it was taxed @ 100%, we'd soon see a country-wide jump in salaries to gardeners and house cleaners. Also, a sudden increase of family businesses...

[gnaritas]

None of those avoid taxes; the point of the tax isn't necessarily to collect the money, but to force the person who made it to spend it rather than accumulate it in a family fortune over generations.

[gnaritas]

> This literally does not make any sense. I paid tax on all those things.

It makes perfect sense. You paid tax on your income, but when you give them money, that's their income, and they need to pay taxes on it.

This notion that you pay tax and then can do anything you want with the money is your not understanding how taxes work. If you give your kids money, that's income for them, they owe taxes on it. Everyone is taxed on their income, you don't get to bypass tax laws because they're your family.

> Since when is it the governments job to make people " understand what it means to not be wealthy."?

You're not paying attention, I didn't say it was to tech them a lesson, I said it was to protect society from them.

> So why don't we ban it altogether?

Because small amounts aren't bad, large amounts are, and that's why we have the inheritance tax.

> Once you hit 18 years of age, you are given a government-built apartament, $1000 pocket money, and off you go, enjoy democracy.

Now you're just being childish. Show me anywhere I said or implied such nonsense.

> Meanwhile, if you die, all your possessions can go to the government who will make sure that your wealth is redistributed to the greatest benefit of the society.

Above a certain amount, that's exactly what should happen.

[rjaco31]

You want to give money/goods to your children so that they have a easier life and need to work less to get the same decent life as anybody.

This is totally valid, up to a certain point. Let's take the other extrem, when a child could inherit enough to get a better life without working than someone working his whole life. There is absolutely no need of such a concentration of wealth.

That's why inheritance should have a strongly progressive taxation rate.

[gambiting]

>>when a child could inherit enough to get a better life without working than someone working his whole life

Why not? If I, as a parent, worked hard enough to make life easy for my child, who are you to tell me that I can't do it?(I mean in general, don't take this personally) I have paid tax on everything that I made, bought, or built - why would they pay tax on the same things again??

Following your argument, we should stop giving our children absolutely anything - you could argue that someone's child should not be given a phone or a car,because it's unfair towards someone else who had to work for it,right? But then why do you care - I worked hard to buy those things to give to my children. Anything else is irrelevant.

I can give you another example which makes me hate inheritance tax with passion - I know a family, which had a house which was owned by them for centuries. And then, when the parents died,they didn't have a lot of money, so the only thing left was that house. HMRC enters the scene -> children have to pay inheritance tax on the house. There is no money left,so they have to sell their family house, purely because people think it would be "unfair" for them to keep it. Absolute BS if you ask me.

[phkahler]

Let us first say that if you sold it to someone else there would likely be sales tax involved (in most places) so the idea of giving someone stuff tax-free is unusual. The point of inheritance taxes is not to prevent you passing it on, it is to prevent the building of family empires which tend to screw people (in addition to being another revenue source). But why? The ONLY purpose of government is actually to preserve order by preventing people from being assholes to each other. Turns out people tend to do that if nobody keeps them in check. Now the rich kinda think the purpose is to keep people from doing anything to THEM, but even that still concedes my stated purpose for government. Large accumulations of wealth can be both good or bad, but from where I sit it looks like the super-rich aren't even sure what to do with all their money, so why not? Estate-tax is just another knob to turn in the preservation of society. The only real question is how far to turn it. I'm open to debate from all sides on that issue.

[acheron]

f I, as a parent, worked hard enough to make life easy for my child, who are you to tell me that I can't do it?

The point is to increase your children's (that is, everyone's) reliance on the government, of course. The ideal for statists would be to remove parents from the equation completely. You've read Brave New World, right?

[ForHackernews]

Is this a parody of a libertarian comment?

The point is that people should stand on their own two feet, and not coast through life on daddy's money (or government largesse, for that matter).

[gambiting]

But you are talking about extreme cases, where people inherit millions of dollars, and that's probably 0.1% of all inheritance cases. I am arguing that this would hit regular people with regular incomes. You save up $100,000 for your child to go to collage over 25 years of your career, and then happen to die? Well, shit son, your child only gets $15,000, rest is taken by the government to make life more fair. But hey, at least they are not coasting through life on their daddy's money, right?

[ForHackernews]

> I am arguing that this would hit regular people with regular incomes.

It won't, and it doesn't. You're misinformed on this topic.

There's a blanket exemption for estates up to $5,000,000: http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employ...

Nobody is interested in taxing your kid's college fund--we just don't want the Waltons running our country for the next 100 years: http://walmart1percent.org/family/

[r3m6]

Simple: We need taxes. The questions is only what kind of taxes.

The inheritance tax is a very democratic tax and benefits society as a whole. And it is good for your kids.

See also http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/269796/listen-to-adam-sm...

[jessaustin]

It might be fair and it might be progressive, but how is it "democratic"?

[JasonFruit]

Because it takes from a few people and gives to many. More people would vote for it than not.

[gambiting]

Ah, Robin Hood democracy. Of course villagers would vote to take away from the king and give to themselves. It all depends on the perspective - if a regular Joe Smith realized that his child will not be able to keep his house because they would never afford to pay 85% of its value in tax, they might not vote for such a law.

[JasonFruit]

Mere details. Certainly one could devise a tax code complex enough that Joe Smith couldn't hope to judge its effect on him.

[mcguire]

85% is way steep, but the general idea is necessary. It prevents the development of a de-facto hereditary aristocracy and also prevents the economy from being winner-take-all. (Citation needed; I can't find it at the moment.)