Estate/Death Tax and the NFL

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Talk to any farmer or small business owner about how fast "meager" comes into play when their land/company ownership is considered part of the estate. There are thousands upon thousands of small firms and farms worth more than the exclusion threshold.

 

Wonder how much Archer Daniels Midland contributes to candidates that favor the inheiritance tax/death tax

[Mickey]

This WSJ editorial relates to the Steelers situation, but also applies to our situation with Ralph and the Bills.

 

 

 

WJS - Estate/Death Tax re Steelers

3.5 million bucks is "meager"??? I want to be in the author's tax bracket.

 

I thought the problem in Pittsburgh is actually over greed. One brother wants to buy the others out but they think they can get more $ for their shares on the open market than from the one brother so they want to put it up for sale.

[Mickey]

smoke....mirrors...mirage. the average guy is only average when he's like you. when he's not like you, he's one of "them". and some people think it's ok to take 'their' stuff, because it means you dobn't have to give up 'your' stuff.

 

i really struggle to understand where you're coming from on this issue. i certainly don't want to toss out labels, or engage in word play, but your statement confounds me. granted, it's only a line or two and can't summarize your entire thought process, but if I read you correctly, you're of the opinion that the government is actually doing people a favor by not allowing the transfer of wealth intergenerationally? at the same time, it's fairly clear you see the assets they have as not really theirs, but perhaps property of the collective whole?

 

i'd always try and put it in this perspective. how much more are you, a presumably average guy, willing to give for the good of the cause? or, perhaps maybe you already give most of it back? you live on a nominal amount of money for basic sustenance food, water, shelter, internet access-----and the rest goes to the public good? because i have to believe, if you have time to enjoy the Buffalo Bills, you must at least a transistor radio that allows you to tune in once in a while. and, figuring that, i figure there are people worse off than you, and surely they'd look at your transistor radio and think---man, that guy has it good! you could help them by giving up more than you do already--nothing prevents you from doing so.

 

as i watch political figures toss out catch phrases like 'eliminating tax breaks for the rich' and 'benefiting the working people of America', and at the same time take a gander into their personal lives----be it guys with 4 houses telling me to conserve, or guys in multi-million dollar estates talking about the poor and impoverished of the world, or of people making a hundred million dollars and seeing fit to only give back 6 or 7 % to charitable causes while speaking passionately about the great unwashed and what they need---it strikes me as inconceivable that they are not viewed as the biggest hypocrites in the world. nothing at all stops them from doing more---a ton more.

 

how about beginning to eliminate the fraud and waste in government before proposing some three card monty tax plan that purports to get it from the wealthy while at the very same time taking another 10-15% off the top of the average guys capital gains, or shaking him down for a little bit more on his interest income.

 

and before you go thinking i'm moving to idaho to start up a day camp for right wing militia types----you are 100% accurate that taxes are a necessary part of life and, if handled with some degree of fiscal responsibilty when implemented---a privilege to pay. when we help pay for safe roads to drive our minivans on, and that's honorable. we pay for streetlights and the police and helping people who need help. it costs a ton to run this gigantic amusement park, and we should do our part. but, please, spare me the rhetoric about helping out the working class until you at least try to fix the corruption inherent in what we are already spending.

 

anyways, someone mentioned it above. just like ted kennedy's kids will continue to enjoy the seasonal compound(s) sprinkled across the country, using a vast fortune that was initially compiled by their great-grandfather (how'd they bypass that nasty estate tax problem??)----there was a way for ralph to avoid this whole estate tax issue, or at least lessen it. business succession planning takes place everyday, and he had the resources to plan accordingly.

Everybody, regardless of political stripe is against wasteful spending yet it goes on and on, why? My own worthless opinion is that the money spent to benefit you is sound policy while the money spent that doesn't benefit you is wasteful pork. So if you are a military contractor, you really love the size of the defense budget, thousand dollar toilet seats and all and are probably easy to convince that it is other people, especially those "welfare queens" who are responsible for our budgetary woes. If you are a single mother who can't feed her kids, you are probably a big fan of food stamps and are probably easy to convince that we could get by with one less army base in Senator Pig's state. If you are retired, you probably think very highly of Social Security and Medicare but are probably not such a big fan of the top secret Space Death Ray Research Program.

 

The notion that we are going to ever have the political will to sacrifice our own sacred cows is a political fantasy. Even if you could wish away those programs, the problems they were created to address aren't going away. As a body politic, we have decided to have these programs and outsized budgets, they weren't foisted on us at the point of a gun. Chances are lots and lots of us had no complaints when we needed guaranteed student loans to pay our college tuitions, or our parents needed Social Security and Medicare to keep from having to live in our basements or when we bought our first home with an FHA loan. Maybe some of us refuse to use national parks out of principle but I am willing to bet not many. I couldn't tell you for the life of me what the Coast Guard does when they aren't picking up a few passengers from a sinking yacht but I bet the people who make their living fishing or doing other work on our coasts could. Maybe I just have a soft spot for scientists trying to end human suffering but I have to admit, the CDC and the NIH make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

 

It is very attractive to us to hear politicians tell us what we want to hear. That everything the government spends our money on is a total waste and jeez, if we just stopped all of that pork everything would be grand. We would all pay lower taxes and it wouldn't cost us a thing. We can have a lower tax bill and the CDC too! We can cut this tax and that tax and still have a Coast Guard, silly! The problem isn't that we need things and want things that cost money, the problem is, *cue drum roll with ominous music in the background* big, bad, nasty corruption. So all we need to do is end corruption and we will be all set because that 250 billion dollar shortfall is all made up of metaphorical $1,000 toilet seats. At $1,000 per, that is what, 250 million toilet seats?

 

I looked up the budget in the US statistical abstract the other day and frankly, it was pretty hard to ID enough real fat to make a difference. The only thing that makes sense to me is to cut everything across the board about 9% which would be enough to balance the budet. Sounds fair right? No way it would happen. That would just tick everyone off and mobilize every political consitutency in the country against it.

 

If we can't cut, the responsible thing to do is to raise taxes to pay for it. Lots of luck there.

[Mickey]

Talk to any farmer or small business owner about how fast "meager" comes into play when their land/company ownership is considered part of the estate. There are thousands upon thousands of small firms and farms worth more than the exclusion threshold.

This 2007 article would argue that the notion that family businesses and farms are hit hard by the inheritance tax is an utter myth:

 

Despite oft-repeated claims that the estate tax has dire consequences for family farms and small businesses, there is in fact very little evidence that it has an outsize impact on these groups. Indeed, the American Farm Bureau Federation acknowledged to the New York Times that it could not cite a single example of a farm having to be sold to

pay estate taxes.

 

Most recently, an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office confirmed that exceedingly few family farms and small businesses face the estate tax (http://www.cbpp.org/7-11-05tax.htm and http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/65xx/

doc6512/07-06-EstateTax.pdf). The CBO report found that if the current exemption level of $2.0 million had been in place in 2000, only 123 farm estates and only 135 family-owned businesses nationwide would have owed any estate tax. The number of taxable farm estates would have dropped to 65 nationwide at a $3.5 million exemption level, the level that takes effect in 2009. The number of taxable family-owned business estates would have fallen to just 94 under

the $3.5 million exemption.

 

The CBO report also found that of the few farm and family business estates that would owe any estate tax, the vast 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. For instance, of the 65 farm estates that would have owed tax under a $3.5 million exemption, just 13 would have faced liquidity constraints.

[bills_fan]

This 2007 article would argue that the notion that family businesses and farms are hit hard by the inheritance tax is an utter myth:

 

Despite oft-repeated claims that the estate tax has dire consequences for family farms and small businesses, there is in fact very little evidence that it has an outsize impact on these groups. Indeed, the American Farm Bureau Federation acknowledged to the New York Times that it could not cite a single example of a farm having to be sold to

pay estate taxes.

 

Most recently, an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office confirmed that exceedingly few family farms and small businesses face the estate tax (http://www.cbpp.org/7-11-05tax.htm and http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/65xx/

doc6512/07-06-EstateTax.pdf). The CBO report found that if the current exemption level of $2.0 million had been in place in 2000, only 123 farm estates and only 135 family-owned businesses nationwide would have owed any estate tax. The number of taxable farm estates would have dropped to 65 nationwide at a $3.5 million exemption level, the level that takes effect in 2009. The number of taxable family-owned business estates would have fallen to just 94 under

the $3.5 million exemption.

 

The CBO report also found that of the few farm and family business estates that would owe any estate tax, the vast 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. For instance, of the 65 farm estates that would have owed tax under a $3.5 million exemption, just 13 would have faced liquidity constraints.

 

 

Then they didn't look hard enough. A poster in this thread gave you an example.

 

And to anyone who says "that money must be made up from somewhere else," No, it doesn't. The estate tax is not a revenue-generator for the gov't. It generates something like .01 % of the budget, after factoring in the costs to administer it.

 

It is purely a social function. All these billionaires getting behind it is bull, but useful because it tells us that it is probably necessary, but that the threshold should be set somewhere around $100 million or categories of assets should be treated differently, liquid vs. illiquid assets. Then, it serves its intended purpose while protecting small businesses/owners of farms etc.

[Lurker]

This 2007 article would argue that the notion that family businesses and farms are hit hard by the inheritance tax is an utter myth:

A bullsh*t study conducted by a 'non-partisan' (wink, wink) group that wants to spend our money? How informative.

 

Here's a rebuttal:

 

Small Business & Entreprenuership Council

 

SBEC letter (the point about liquid assets is most relevant)

[Marv's Neighbor]

If Ralph dies in 2010... there is no estate tax. Sounds kinda cruel.... but it's true. It starts up again in 2011.

That depends on who wins the Election.

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

Lest folks make the false assumption that it is only the poor who want to soak the rich who favor what luntz et al have successfully dubbed the death tax note that the extremely wealthy such as Warren Buffett and 118 other fat cats have strongly come out in favor of inheritance taxes. Buffett went on record saying:

 

"Without the estate tax, you in effect will have an aristocracy of wealth, which means you pass down the ability to command the resources of the nation based on heredity rather than merit," Buffett told the New York Times in 2001. "[Repeal would be like] choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics."

 

Buffett also joined a campaign in 2001 to preserve the estate tax alongside 119 other wealthy Americans, including George Soros and Bill Gates' father, William H. Gates, Sr..

 

Details can be found at > http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/13/pf/taxes/b...e_tax/index.htm < Folks very rich, very poor and in between see value in the estate tax.

 

The problems thrust upon the relatively few folks (even if it is thousands of farms we are talking within a base of 300 million people which would make 3 million farms at 1% relatively few) whose family farm wealth is a problem there would seem to be a targeted solution which gets at solving these few problems rather than allowing the Donald Trumps of the world hide behind these intrepid family farmers.

 

The simple fact is that if you are going to spend 3 trillion on a war you choose in Iraq the money has to come from somewhere. The estate tax with it sizable exemptions and can be avoided if one chooses to donate the money to a reputable charitable cause (or even create a real irrevocable charity which runs the Bills for the benefit of the WNY community- one would need to fight the NFL which would prefer to stop future Green Bays but as Cleveland demonstrated the NFL can be beat) and really is a solvable problem despite the WSJ's politically motivated slant.

 

fair enough on Warren Buffett et al, I've read up a bit on Buffett and understand what he has to say. And his thoughts on the issue are note-worthy, although one could argue keeping even 20% of a few billion still leaves his heirs, if they were to get the money, in the "aristocracy of wealth". and taking your argument to it's natural conclusion, i'm struggling with why it makes sense to offer a targeted solution to the multi-millionare farmers? re-distribution of wealth is re-distribution of wealth, isn't it ? why is the donald's money fair game but the farmer's not? because they are farmers?

 

and, taking it all one sep further, is there a certain level one becomes a 'fat cat'? I can see how most reasonable people would describe those you mentioned as extraordinarily wealthy, but let's look at estates valued at $5 mill? Fat cat? Aristocrats? $10 mill? $ 1 mill?

 

the estate tax issue pre-dates the war in Iraq by over 200 years in some way, shape or form. what was the argument before then?

 

at the core of the argument for me is hypocrisy of it all. politicians speak of tax on income, ignoring the completely legal process by which very wealthy people bypass a whole lot of tax that maybe you and I can't.

[robertpaul49]

8.7% of the populationg are worth 1 million or more. On the one hand, it annoys me that someone who has basically won the lottery can keep their money and advantage, while I have to pay so much money out of my paycheck. I worked for a guy like that who said we need to educate the children of the rich more since they will take over everything. On the other hand, my dad owns a small manufacturing plant in Rochester, 40 employees. His retirement and his house are tied up in the business, and when I was going to college we couldn't get a student loan because he was considered wealthy even though the business almost went bankrupt. Certainly, there is no way that I could take over the business if he passed away because I would have to come up with an large amount of cash based on what a government beauracrat desides, which I guess is all right since New York hates manufacturing.

 

The government definitely wastes too much money. Tax receipts have gone up incredibly, but government spending has gone up even more. As far as government waste, in my home town I could do without, the fast farry, the opera house on top of a bus station, and in NYC, most of Mayor Bloomberg's ideas are ways to increase taxes, such as his congession pricing scheme. I guess, I would also like to see less subsidies to farmers since the price of food has skyrocketed. Oh, ethonal was also a terrible idea, did anyone notice that oil has gone from $60 per barrel to $145 since the fall of 2006? I wonder what changed, anyway, I'm buying gold.

 

I just hope that Tom G. buys the Bills. Go Paychex!!!!!

[KOKBILLS]

There is a principle in life... it's called working hard so your kids don't have to.

 

Is that it? My Dad always told Me it was work Your Kids hard so You don't have to...

 

That bastard...

[Pyrite Gal]

running a NFL franchise is not a charitable activity.

 

avoiding the estate tax by giving up the assets being taxed to a charity only solves the problem if your goal was give away all of your assets to 3rd parties.

 

probably not the original intention.

 

you must have worked for the Vatican in a prior lifetime.

Having no interest in assaulting little boys I have not worked for the Catholic Church.

 

My sense is though that after being fortunate in my life financially and having accumulated some stuff, the simple fact is that the best things in life are not things.

 

I certainly am not Warren Buffett or Bill Gates but it is quite easy for me to see why two of them after successful careers accumulating assets are devoting much of their current time and effort to giving tons of assets away to charitable institutions of their choice.

 

What they did before in life is not a bad thing at all IMHO, but it is very good to see that they are making the hard work "payoff" by being in a position to give most of their accumulated wealth away.

 

I hope Ralph is secure enough to do the same.

[obie_wan]

Having no interest in assaulting little boys I have not worked for the Catholic Church.

 

My sense is though that after being fortunate in my life financially and having accumulated some stuff, the simple fact is that the best things in life are not things.

 

I certainly am not Warren Buffett or Bill Gates but it is quite easy for me to see why two of them after successful careers accumulating assets are devoting much of their current time and effort to giving tons of assets away to charitable institutions of their choice.

 

What they did before in life is not a bad thing at all IMHO, but it is very good to see that they are making the hard work "payoff" by being in a position to give most of their accumulated wealth away.

 

I hope Ralph is secure enough to do the same.

 

well - if you have a billion dollars and give away half, Buffwt still has half a billion dollars. (you forget that the GAtes and Buffet money did not go to reral charities - it went to a foundation controlled by Bill and his wife which only has to pay out 5% of the annual earnings (not value) to real functioning chariteis. The good news is that they got a current charitiable deduction to reduce their current income. Just moving the cash from left hand to right hand.

 

not quite the same as being forced to sell the farm and family business just to pay the tax.

 

big difference between liquid assets and the ownership of a farm or football team

[Pyrite Gal]

well - if you have a billion dollars and give away half, Buffwt still has half a billion dollars. (you forget that the GAtes and Buffet money did not go to reral charities - it went to a foundation controlled by Bill and his wife which only has to pay out 5% of the annual earnings (not value) to real functioning chariteis. The good news is that they got a current charitiable deduction to reduce their current income. Just moving the cash from left hand to right hand.

 

not quite the same as being forced to sell the farm and family business just to pay the tax.

 

big difference between liquid assets and the ownership of a farm or football team

When you site the Bill and Melinda Gates example, this is just the type of hijinks that the law would allow one to do which might allow an enterprising individual such as Ralph to keep control of the team within his designated heirs but still serve the community if he chooses.

 

One can avoid a lot of the bit of inheritance taxes by "giving" the wealth to a charitable institution as part of an irrevocable trust. This trust can be controlled to some degree and hire within the bounds of the marketplace family members or other heirs to in run the team.

 

This would in fact be giving away the asset rather than allowing one's heirs to simply sit on their butts and collect the millions and NFL team produces as though it were a printing press. It does not allow one to escape the so-called death tax and simply pocket the bucks as though your Dad was the king.

 

However, one can set things up in a manner where the designated heirs essentially maintain control of management of the asset, gets paid some huge but not exhorbitant amount money, but essentially never have to pay for a meal again if you choose as this "manager" would be royalty as far as this town is concerned.

 

I think the problem is here that folks seem to want 100% and somehow act like they are getting robbed when simply having 75% of the largess involved is a king's ransom.

 

There are a ton of creative ways where a good trusts and estates lawyer can figure out a way to configure passing on this asset which would still allow a designated Ralph heir to control the team and pocket tons of bucks (though not the megatons inherent in ownership in our pseudo free market society.

[obie_wan]

When you site the Bill and Melinda Gates example, this is just the type of hijinks that the law would allow one to do which might allow an enterprising individual such as Ralph to keep control of the team within his designated heirs but still serve the community if he chooses.

 

One can avoid a lot of the bit of inheritance taxes by "giving" the wealth to a charitable institution as part of an irrevocable trust. This trust can be controlled to some degree and hire within the bounds of the marketplace family members or other heirs to in run the team.

 

This would in fact be giving away the asset rather than allowing one's heirs to simply sit on their butts and collect the millions and NFL team produces as though it were a printing press. It does not allow one to escape the so-called death tax and simply pocket the bucks as though your Dad was the king.

 

However, one can set things up in a manner where the designated heirs essentially maintain control of management of the asset, gets paid some huge but not exhorbitant amount money, but essentially never have to pay for a meal again if you choose as this "manager" would be royalty as far as this town is concerned.

 

I think the problem is here that folks seem to want 100% and somehow act like they are getting robbed when simply having 75% of the largess involved is a king's ransom.

 

There are a ton of creative ways where a good trusts and estates lawyer can figure out a way to configure passing on this asset which would still allow a designated Ralph heir to control the team and pocket tons of bucks (though not the megatons inherent in ownership in our pseudo free market society.

 

Most of these schemes you reference allow a gradual transfer of value over many years. Ralph's problem is that the team erxploded in value recently and he does not have many years and many heirs over which he can pass value.

 

Your plan is great if all of the estate is liquid sitting in a bank account.

 

However, when the bulk of teh estate is made up of stock in a business and the underlying real estate, the consequences from the esate tax are much more punitive.

 

When a family works for several generations to create a family business which is now worth a significant sum and the govt forces teh heirs to sell it to pay taxes - then there is a problem in the system.

 

Joe Robbie is a case in point. His family was forced to sell the team / stadium to raise the cash to pay the estate tax

[BadDad]

This is what happens when Frank Luntz and his crew of wordscribes gets a hold of ways to manipulate the masses. Most people were in favor of the 'inheritance' tax because they ascribed to the theory that if you earn your money, you should be able to keep it and do with it as you will. However, keeping money 'in the family' from one generation to another - so to speak - is a sure fire way to build an aristocratic elite. This particular tax truly only affects a small segment of the very richest of society.

 

Just as Luntz and his crew got labels changed to present "healthy forest" and "blue sky" initiatives because he realized most Americans can't be bothered with understanding details of important legislation (as both pieces of the afore-mentioned initiatives were simply used to defile the environment), just give it a nice title and people will follow like sheep. It is interesting that Madison himself wrote that one of his greatest fears was the growth of a more direct democracy were people would be misled into doing what was not in their best interest.

 

Sorry, I didn't want this to devolve into a political rant (I've already seen the "open-mindedness" of folks in that section of TBD), simply wanted to point out that most Americans were in favor of an inheritance tax - but once the name changed to something more ominous like 'death tax', the majority of the populace screamed foul and wanted it repealed.

 

Are we not lemmings?

 

Here, here!!!!!

[Pyrite Gal]

Most of these schemes you reference allow a gradual transfer of value over many years. Ralph's problem is that the team erxploded in value recently and he does not have many years and many heirs over which he can pass value.

 

Your plan is great if all of the estate is liquid sitting in a bank account.

 

However, when the bulk of teh estate is made up of stock in a business and the underlying real estate, the consequences from the esate tax are much more punitive.

 

When a family works for several generations to create a family business which is now worth a significant sum and the govt forces teh heirs to sell it to pay taxes - then there is a problem in the system.

 

Joe Robbie is a case in point. His family was forced to sell the team / stadium to raise the cash to pay the estate tax

My understanding of the Robbie case (which is based on seeing but not perusing in any depth several articles so I can easily be educated by someone supplying links to more authoritative articles) is that Robbie for whatever reason had not done much estate planning and family fell victim to that. It easily can happen as some folks simply refuse to confront the reality of making out a will or aggressively seeking estate advice because this means admitting one's mortality.

 

A person may also simply be stupid (something I can easily believe about a Fish owner) as well. Given the myriad ways our complicated tax code allows a smart person to escape some (not all but some) of the alleged death tax take, yes some do involve several years of small consistent action. However, some such as setting up an irrevocable trust for a charitable purpose and then aligning and handing out trustee control over that charity in a manner than benefits the heirs is something that does not necessarily require tons of time to make work.

 

In fact, though thanks to the distrust between the NFL and NFLPA that opens the books of these private businesses in ways generally not subject to public scrutiny we actually know a lot about the bottomline of the Bills take. However, we outsiders no nothing really about how Ralph may have actually been sharing his wealth he will leave with selected heirs so he actually has been doing the slow distribution you talk about. If he was smart he actually could have been distributing shares of the Bills to heirs for years, done that distribution by gifting type B stocks which have full market value but no voting control over the team while maintaining prefered stocks with voting control so the assets escape an estate tax.

 

I doubt this because his family heirs have shown no interest in running the team, but this does not mean he has not done this or something else. In fact, when Ralph's will is made public it is virtually guaranteed that he and his lawyers will have set it up to do something which will surprise us all.

 

All in all though it is sad when a family loses an asset like a farm which has gained cash value so that a sale must occur to pay the taxes, it actually in reality is hard to feel totally bad for the poor heirs. In Ralph's case even if a sale is forced of the $800+ million asset he paid chump change for, then his poor heirs will lose 45% of this money to the tax man and they will be forced to settle for merely half a billion $ in inheritance after taxes.

 

Sure they may lose roughly half a billion to Uncle Sam but they will get almost half a billion they did no work to get if Ralph leaves the asset to his kids.

 

I simply do not feel that bad for them getting "ripped off" in this way. Wouldn't you love to get ripped off and settle for half a billion.

[obie_wan]

My understanding of the Robbie case (which is based on seeing but not perusing in any depth several articles so I can easily be educated by someone supplying links to more authoritative articles) is that Robbie for whatever reason had not done much estate planning and family fell victim to that. It easily can happen as some folks simply refuse to confront the reality of making out a will or aggressively seeking estate advice because this means admitting one's mortality.

 

A person may also simply be stupid (something I can easily believe about a Fish owner) as well. Given the myriad ways our complicated tax code allows a smart person to escape some (not all but some) of the alleged death tax take, yes some do involve several years of small consistent action. However, some such as setting up an irrevocable trust for a charitable purpose and then aligning and handing out trustee control over that charity in a manner than benefits the heirs is something that does not necessarily require tons of time to make work.

 

In fact, though thanks to the distrust between the NFL and NFLPA that opens the books of these private businesses in ways generally not subject to public scrutiny we actually know a lot about the bottomline of the Bills take. However, we outsiders no nothing really about how Ralph may have actually been sharing his wealth he will leave with selected heirs so he actually has been doing the slow distribution you talk about. If he was smart he actually could have been distributing shares of the Bills to heirs for years, done that distribution by gifting type B stocks which have full market value but no voting control over the team while maintaining prefered stocks with voting control so the assets escape an estate tax.

 

I doubt this because his family heirs have shown no interest in running the team, but this does not mean he has not done this or something else. In fact, when Ralph's will is made public it is virtually guaranteed that he and his lawyers will have set it up to do something which will surprise us all.

 

All in all though it is sad when a family loses an asset like a farm which has gained cash value so that a sale must occur to pay the taxes, it actually in reality is hard to feel totally bad for the poor heirs. In Ralph's case even if a sale is forced of the $800+ million asset he paid chump change for, then his poor heirs will lose 45% of this money to the tax man and they will be forced to settle for merely half a billion $ in inheritance after taxes.

 

Sure they may lose roughly half a billion to Uncle Sam but they will get almost half a billion they did no work to get if Ralph leaves the asset to his kids.

 

I simply do not feel that bad for them getting "ripped off" in this way. Wouldn't you love to get ripped off and settle for half a billion.

 

1. you can't put an NFL franchise into a charitable trust.

 

2. you totally miss the point regarding a family business. The family (kids = heirs) are running the business. They generally are not deadbeats looking for a windfall. However, the estate tax forces the estate the sell the business and force the working family members out of the business.

[shibuya]

I just don't understand (or care to) death tax. It is blantan robbery.

 

 

Well without the death tax you would have more super rich families who control everything and own everything. Many of these kids who inherit this mass wealth have no clue how to use it responsibly. Could you imagine being 18 years old and being given a billion dollars tax free...

 

In that way it is designed to keep wealth from overly accumulating in just certain families.

 

I don't mind the death tax, what I do mind is the fact that are government can't get its own head out of its own ass and do the right thing with tax money and invest it into the country and make the country a much better place for everyone.

[Dante]

This is what happens when Frank Luntz and his crew of wordscribes gets a hold of ways to manipulate the masses. Most people were in favor of the 'inheritance' tax because they ascribed to the theory that if you earn your money, you should be able to keep it and do with it as you will. However, keeping money 'in the family' from one generation to another - so to speak - is a sure fire way to build an aristocratic elite. This particular tax truly only affects a small segment of the very richest of society.

Just what we need. Big government looking after us. Who's protecting us from them?

[erynthered]

Well without the death tax you would have more super rich families who control everything and own everything. Many of these kids who inherit this mass wealth have no clue how to use it responsibly. Could you imagine being 18 years old and being given a billion dollars tax free...

 

In that way it is designed to keep wealth from overly accumulating in just certain families.

 

I don't mind the death tax, what I do mind is the fact that are government can't get its own head out of its own ass and do the right thing with tax money and invest it into the country and make the country a much better place for everyone.

 

 

WOW!