It is often said that there are two things certain in life, "death and taxes." Then there’s the estate tax or more commonly known as the ‘death tax.’ Basically, this is a tax for dying and leaving an estate worth more than $5.49 million. The current rate is 40%.
This is a tax to punish anyone that worked hard and tried to provide for their heirs. You may think that it’s good tax because it punishes rich people. Truth is, there are few rich people that end up paying the tax. But, it you look at a family farm that may generate less than $200,000 to $300,000 gross income per year, the estate may be worth more than the $5.49 million. The end result may be that the heirs have to sell off land or assets to pay the tax and where would that put them?
What happens to the family farm? It may go out of business. Workers may get fired. The people the farm supplies may not be able to operate profitably without them. And the list goes on and on. Wait you say, just how many family farms are there? That’s not the point. Family farms are just an example because with today’s land prices, it doesn’t take a lot of land to get into the millions.
The point is, that if someone, anyone, works and plans all their life, to end up with nearly half of what they earned, which has already been taxed, being forfeited to the government.
The estate tax is a slap in the face of everyone because it demonstrates just how much government power exists.
What’s next? Maybe taking the gold out of the deceased’s teeth before burial.
PMO
©2017
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