By Elaine Magliaro
During the “New Rules” segment of Real Time with Bill Maher last night, the host of the program talked about spoiled rich kids, the culture of dependency, and the “death tax.”
Maher said, “Someone has to explain to me why Republicans believe that not working and getting free money — you know, like the ‘takers’ — is the worst most corrupting thing that could ever happen to a person, except if you’re rich.” He highlighted “one of the first actions taken by the new Republican Congress this year: trying to eliminate the tax on inherited wealth…” Maher added, “There’s only one thing conservatives believe in more than work and that’s the God-given right of rich people to leave all their money to their kids so they never have to work a day in their lives.” He even suggested that rich folks might consider “inflicting some of the ‘tough love’ they use against poor people on their own children.”
Real Time with Bill Maher: Affluenza and the Culture of Dependency (HBO)
SOURCE
Bill Maher Blasts Spoiled Rich Kids During ‘New Rules’ (Huffington Post)
Bill Maher: GOP Happy to Give Gov’t Handouts — to ‘F*ckface’ Rich Kids (Mediaite)
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
This is a bad idea. Many small family farms and businesses will not be passed on. This is nothing but class envy and the people who will be hurt are the upper middle class business owners.
The successful small businesses and family farms cannot be passed on due to inheritance taxes. Many people have 500k to one or two million in assets but are not rich people. They are teachers, architects, engineers, middle managers in the public and private sectors, plumbers, carpenters and other trades people.
They worked hard and paid their taxes on the money they earned. They put money aside for 30 or 40 years for retirement and their child’s education. If they die early or if they did well with their investments, why is the government entitled to it? When is enough enough?
This is just another violation of the hard working people of this country.
So much for the liberal desire to help the middle class.
Bron,
The estate tax does not even kick in until the estate value is above $5.43 million per person for 2015. When one has that level of assets, hiring a top tier accountant is not a problem. There are numerous deductions and accounting techniques to shelter the estate’s value. Of course, if one’s estate is well into eight to ten figures, the kids may just have to get by on a few million apiece rather than a few hundred million.
Oh, the humanity!
bron,
Ten Facts You Should Know About the Federal Estate Tax
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=2655
Excerpt:
1. Fewer Than 2 of Every 1,000 Estates Face the Estate Tax
2. Taxable Estates Generally Pay Less Than One-Sixth of Their Value in Tax
3. Large Loopholes Enable Many Estates to Avoid Taxes
4. Only a Handful of Small, Family-Owned Farms and Businesses Owe Any Estate Tax
Only 20 small business and farm estates nationwide owed any estate tax in 2013, according to TPC.[10] TPC’s analysis defined a small-business or farm estate as one with more than half its value in a farm or business and with the farm or business assets valued at less than $5 million. Furthermore, TPC estimates those 20 estates owed just 4.9 percent of their value in tax, on average.[11]
These findings are consistent with a 2005 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study finding that of the few farm and family business estates that would owe any estate tax under the rules scheduled for 2009, the overwhelming majority would have sufficient liquid assets (such as bank
accounts, stocks, bonds, and insurance) in the estate to pay the tax without having to touch the farm or business.[12] The current estate tax rules are even more generous.
Furthermore, special estate tax provisions — such as the option to spread payments over a 15-year period and at low interest rates — allow the few taxable estates that would face any liquidity constraints to pay the tax without selling off any farm assets.
bron,
Get yourself a dictionary, or a spell-checker.
You misspelled “libertarian.”
Three Cheers for the Death Tax!
Please, conservatives. Taxing wealth appropriately is not just defensible. It’s moral. And I have some pretty good back-up on this position.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/23/three-cheers-for-the-death-tax.html
Excerpt:
The conservative position on this is astonishing when you think about it. This is right-wing welfare. If you’re poor and probably black or brown and inherited a habit of dependency, get off yer ass and get a job. But if you’re rich and probably white and inherited many millions of dollars that you did nothing to earn, watch soap operas!
They also say—but it saps initiative. Who’s gonna bother to go out and invent something and work hard if he knows the government is going to take half of it when he dies? Well, first of all, the government isn’t going to take anywhere near half of it (see below). Second of all, who actually thinks like that?
The estate tax was established in 1916. We had fairly high estate taxes up through 2001, but I somehow seem to recall a lot of inventing going on the America of 1916-2001. If you’re the kind of person who’s going to let tax policy that doesn’t kick in until after you’re dead anyway determine how hard you’re going to work in life, you’re probably not the kind of person who has much innovative capacity to begin with.
But it’s been amazing, the work conservatives have put into protecting great fortunes and making sure that poor Paris Hilton gets her fair shake. There may not be a single policy—certainly in the realm of tax policy, but possibly beyond—on which conservatives have more ferociously trained their gun sights in the past generation. All to protect what really amounts to the top .5 percent of the population.
Now I will acknowledge this much: There was liberal error here. When conservatives first set their sights on the estate tax, it was, indeed, too severe. Back in 2001, estates valued at more than $650,000 were subject to estate tax (but only those dollars above $650,000, so someone who inherited $700,000 in 1999, say, paid tax on only the last $50,000). That was too low a threshold. Democrats should have raised it incrementally when had the power to do it, but they didn’t, and it became an Achilles Heel. And then once Dubya was president and the GOP controlled Congress, the Republicans, whose think tanks had spent years sharpening this spear, took it and stuck it into the heel and ran it right up the leg.
So, right now, according to this Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report, the estate tax doesn’t start until $5.43 million per person or $10.86 million per couple. That’s high enough that only the wealthiest .15 percent of Americans pay any estate tax. Among the 3,780 U.S. households that owed any estate tax in 2013, their average tax rate was 16.6 percent. There are massive loopholes that many rich people take advantage of to avoid even that. For one quasi-baroque one, click here (PDF) and scroll down to page 18.
And no, the vast majority of small business and family farms don’t get hit. Those are lies. A few do, enough that Fox News can trot one out from time to time and say “See?!?” But in fact, in 2013, 20 businesses and farm estates owed any estate tax, and the percentage tax they paid was just 4.9 percent. Read that last sentence again. That’s not 20 percent. That’s 20, two-zero, in the whole country.
So what?
The money will be taxed during the life of the heirs as nonW2 income. The government gets its share just not all at once and the money is invested and helping other people make money.
Bottom line though is the government is too big and we pay enough in taxes. It also isn’t any of the governments business what worthless little rich kids do with their lives. It isn’t mine either because I am not paying for them to live.