4 Senate "Democrats" prove they absolutely hate the poor

[J. J.]

Repealing estate tax = helping and loving the poor

Your brain isn't functioning.

How the hell does it help the poor? Talk about a brain-dead attack.

In some cases, the estates are small business assets, that employ a few people and do not produce huge wealth for the owners.  The owner dies, the heirs get hit with the tax and close or cut down on expenses, by firing employees.  More unemployment.

[J. J.]

Repealing estate tax = helping and loving the poor

Your brain isn't functioning.

How the hell does it help the poor? Talk about a brain-dead attack.

In some cases, the estates are small business assets, that employ a few people and do not produce huge wealth for the owners.  The owner dies, the heirs get hit with the tax and close or cut down on expenses, by firing employees.  More unemployment.

They can't be too small a business or they won't be taxed. Anything under $2 million for an individual or $4 million for a couple is completely untaxed.  Nice try at right-wing propaganda, but it failed.

A small business can easily have more than $2 million in assets.  I'm not talking GM, Wall-mart or Microsoft.  Something like a family owned trucking business/moving business, a small family owned medical practice or legal practice, a moderately large farm.  Even something like a large restaurant can get above that amount.  Even someone with 3-4 dry cleaning stores, or 2 or 3 funeral homes, would be above that.

We're talking reality, no right wing anything.

[J. J.]

Some people win the lottery too.

meaning......??

Just because someone gets lucky doesn't mean that we should change the tax laws just for them.

The exemption is $2 million for an individual, $4 for a couple, and then you pay taxes on the value over that. I fail to see how this is at all unreasonable.

The local middle aged couple that owns the dry cleaning store on Broad might very well be one of those with $4 million in assets.  Maybe they have a nice house in the suburbs that they've saved up for 20 years to pay, but they's been showing up to work six days a week for the last 20 years to get it, or more likely sent their kids to college.

These are not exactly hereditary peers.

Do you have any idea how much net worth is tied up even in a small business?  If you are talking about something like a single owner small (10-15 employee) construction company, you are easily talking about more than $4 Million in equipment and supplies.  One statistic I saw was that the average is $13 million in assets for a small company.

Take something like a mini-mart.  The physical plant, and inventory, is more than $4 million.  Same with a mechanic that owns a repair shop.  That is all counted.

Same with farmers; they might be sitting on top of $10 million dollars worth of land, but they have huge costs in maintaining it.

These people are not the idle rich.  These are hard working, oven not particularly well educated, not high living, people.

I thought the Democratic party was suppose to be the working man's friend; I guess not.

[J. J.]

I support calling it income and taxing it at the appropriate rate.

^^^^^^^^^^

Yeah, that's the best overall way to look at it. I'd support eliminating the estate tax if it was simply rolled into the regular tax structure.

I have no problem treating it as income if the heir sells it.  He takes it over he's technically going to "inherit" several million dollars.  He runs the business, he doesn't see a penny of it; it is all tied up in the equipment and assets of the business.

The current inheritance tax says, in effect, sell the business to pay taxes.

[J. J.]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

In other words, provide a real example, or stop spreading your propaganda.

Well, the uber-liberal Washington Post does provide some:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/05/AR2006060501360.html

Note that in 2000, one-third closed.  That does not take into account how many had to lay off or fire employees, nor how many had to decide to cancel plans for expansion or hiring more employees.

Farming is less problematic, where less than 10% had to be sold.

Quick question, I've you were inherit a business with $10,000,000 in assets, how much more money is now in your bank account?

[J. J.]

So where's the single real example of the family farm? Oh, BTW, when that article was written the estate tax exemption was only $675,000. The Democratic plan was to permantly increase that to $2 million. The Republican plan that was passed will have it decrease to $1 million in 2010, so that they could claim that it didn't cost trillions of dollars.

You'll note that the site cited 138 family farms, in one year; and the article was written on June 6 of this year.  That's 2006.  They use 2000 figures for some reason.

In case you've forgotten, we entered into a recession in 2001 and had a little thing called 9/11, which really slowed down the economy.  We're also dealing with an aging population, at about the same time

Look, I'm not in favor of abolishing it and certainly, when the assets of the business are sold. but there clearly needs to be better protection for those working people that the Democratic party use to claim to support.  The new motto for the Democratic Party could be "Work hard, and screw your kids on taxes," if they really don't support some reform of this.

That said, something like increased value in stocks could be taxed, because these (in most cases) is not a business asset.

[J. J.]

Actually, the repeal of the estate tax will hurt the middle class.

Suppose the parents bought a hoiuse for $10,000 that is now worth $210,000 and they have total assets that are low enough to not have to pay the estate tax.  Under current law, when they die, the basis price of the house for the capital gains tax is increased to $210,000.  With the estate tax repeal, it remains $10,000 so when it is sold, the heirs will get socked with a capital gains tax on the sale of $30,000 ($40,000 if the reduction in the capital gains tax is not made permanent).

I would much rather see the capital gains tax eliminated than the estate tax.  It creates a lot of useless accounting rigamarole and record keeping for the sole purpose of satisfying the tax, and that's without even considering the other economic benefits of its elimination and/or reduction.

Actually, I have less of a problem with using capital gains taxes in these cases.  That is a tax when the asset is sold and assumes that the seller gets a nice hunk of cash.

Even in businesses, if the heir sells it, fine, that is a capital gain.  The heir is no longer using the assets for the benefit of job creation, at least in that business.

Interestingly, the question I asked was never answered.  That question was, "...you were inherit a business with $10,000,000 in assets, how much more money is now in your bank account?"  That answer is zero.

[J. J.]

Again, this does not affect the over 99% of estates that are less than $2 million for individuals or $4 million for couples.

And if you do inheirit some farm or something that doesn't have significant liquid assetts, there are these things called mortgages.

There has not been shown to be a single case of a family farm that had to be sold due to the estate tax. Obviously most family farms aren't worth $2-4 million.

The Washington Post list 138 examples, in one year.  I doubt that there are too many more 1,600+ family farms that are inherited one year/  Currently there are about 897,000 farms, excluding another 834,000 where the farmer is part time (he owns another business).  Of the 897,000 about 150,000 are small, in terms of sales.  Now, not every farmer dies every year, but that number is between one and two percent.

http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/demographics.html

[sarcasm]
I love the philosophy of borrowing money to pay taxes on money that is tied up in equipment and used to pay the working man!  Oh, that's a good Democratic way to keep the economy flowing, and provide employment! [/sarcasm]

Even in practical terms, it may not be possible; many farmers borrow to buy seed in anticipation of selling it at the harvest.  They have used up their credit.  Less than 25% of all farms gross more than $50,000/year.

And this does look at small, non-farm businesses, where one third are sold.

Let's face it, the inheritance tax is anti-farmer and anti-small business.

[J. J.]

Here a couple of examples, including ones where people donate their land to keep it from being developed.

http://www.cfbf.com/agalert/AgAlertStory.cfm?ID=73&ck=D2DDEA18F00665CE8623E36BD4E3C7C5

http://www.horsesass.org/index.php?p=506

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2005/oct/22/519546883.html

http://www.pilipacific.org/conservation_options/consr_options.html

Let's see, the New Democratic Party hates open spaces, the farmer and the working man.

[J. J.]

You know, I wish they had voted differently. But JFern, the thing you never get is that these senators don't represent you or me or the left wing of the Democratic Party; they represent the people of their state and likely acted accordingly.

The estate tax affects under a percent of estates. These "Democrats" are not representing their states.

So, if it doesn't affect you, you must be for it? If you are a man and won't be getting an abortion, you must be against abortion?

If 99% of people in a state wanted this, I assure you, the Senator would have voted for it.

They would if they knew that less than 0.5% of estates were affected instead of getting all of their information from the so called media and other Republican propaganda organizations.

Agreed, but that still does not protect those small family businesses (about one third) and farms (about one tenth) that fall under the tax.  The small business numbers were particularly shocking.

[J. J.]

No, from the 2000 data, there were only 123 farms and 135 small businesses over the $2 million threshold. Couples currently get $4 million tax free.
http://www.cbpp.org/5-31-06tax2.htm

Well, actually, the data is this:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/05/AR2006060501360.html

Interestingly, it is the same figures that your cite notes.



Now, six years ago, in 2000, 123 farms and 135 businesses had assets over $2 million, but in those six years, assets have increased.  Also keep in mind that the minimums are not indexed for inflation, so as time goes on more will fall under this.

Again we the policy of the new Democratic Party, screw over the farmer and small  businesses.

[J. J.]

No, from the 2000 data, there were only 123 farms and 135 small businesses over the $2 million threshold. Couples currently get $4 million tax free.
http://www.cbpp.org/5-31-06tax2.htm

So, my family's business would potentially be one of the 135 small businesses that would be effected by the estate tax.  I find that hard to believe.

Oh wait... 

Except you're not taking into account that most small family businesses fear the estate tax so much, they use the many and various loopholes provided to them in the tax code to avoid paying hardly any estate tax whatsoever.  Since you've spent your time in college or graduate school or posting on the Internet, or whatever the hell else you do and not out in the real world, I don't blame you for not interacting with these businesses so you know what their concerns.

I've said that I'm not opposed to raising the exemption and tightening the loopholes, so that you might be able to get some money (which you're not presently doing) out of the truly rich families to fund more government programs.  But now I'm done being nice. 

My family is one of those "small businesses" that has assets +$4 million dollars and will pay no income tax under current estate tax laws, regardless of whether it's $4 million or $675,000.

Wouldn't you like to be able to get your filthy leftist, stink-ridden hands on my family's money, you socialist pig?  I'm sure that would fit your class-warfare ideals to a tee, jackass.

Have a nice day. 

You also have to remember that the businesses effected are only those where the owner dies.  So over ten years that, on average, would effect 1,340 small businesses.

Further, as noted in some of the links, some farmer are donating their land to conservation groups, just to prevent from being developed; they are not in those statistics, but it still takes farmland out of production.  The cannot afford to pay the taxes so they give it away.

Let's face it the new Democrats favor hurting farmers, small businesses, food production, and oppose open spaces.  That's a real winning policy.

And Sam, tell us how you really feel next time. 

[J. J.]

Well, there's the problem with your data. My data says that those 1659 farms and 485 businesses are the only ones that would have to pay any taxes with a $675,000 exemption. It does not  that they'd be forced to sell them, and may I remind you that the exemption is now $2 million for individuals and $4 million for couples?
regardless of whether it's $4 million or $675,000.

We don't have the data from 2006.  What your saying is that if these people had the same assets and died six years later, they wouldn't have to pay it now.  To real problems with that theory:

1.  The value of assets tend to increase over time.  You don't take that into account and the you can't revive the people after six years.  Some might have physical assets, like land, that was worth $1,000,000 in 2000 and it might be worth $3,000,000 today, even though they have not made any improvements to it.

This is especially true when areas near existing farmland are developed.  Remember open spaces?  Under what you think is good, that will be all you can do, remember them.

2.  The population is getting older and is approaching death more quickly.  The number of people subject to this tax will be increasing.  It's called "demographics."

[J. J.]

1. Real estate sometimes goes up and sometimes goes down. I will concede that things would be worth about 20% more because of inflation, but that's not a huge difference.

2. The death rate is DECREASING.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005131.html

1.  Property values are not governed so much by inflation, but by location.    Land that was too distant to be developed 10-20 years ago is now right up against the suburbs.  The value of the land shoots up.

Here is a report from those, arch-conservative reactionaries, the Sierra Club [/sarcam]:

http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/report98/report.asp

This has been a major problem southern and central California, so I'm quite surprised you're not familiar with it.

Here are some examples from states:

http://ianrnews.unl.edu/storyfiles/050324_table1.html

http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/NEWS/2001/Nov/landvalue.htm

http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=3881415&nav=menu132_3_5

In Iowa, the rate 5.5% increase in six months. 

2.  I though you'd screw it up.  The "death rate" is based on the number of deaths per thousand.  The population has increased, but so has the number of deaths.

In 2000, there were 2,403,351 deaths in the US.  In 2003 (the last data I have) 2,443,908.  The number of deaths is increasing while the "death rate" is declining.  My sources are the 2003 and 2006 World Almanac, pp. 73 and 179 respectively.

Here is an online source from 2002-3.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/finaldeaths03_tables.pdf

You can actually see the number of deaths increasing while the "death rate" drops.

These examples illustrate reasons why we shouldn't trust you.