I think the estate tax should be adjusted

There's certainly room to ask whether the trigger for the estate tax is set at the best level. But repeal? I have lots of problems with the idea that certain people should spend their lives on Easy Street because their great...[x whatever]...grandparents did well. I thought the American way was to work hard and get ahead. The idea that you make it because your ancestors were successful in time immemorial smacks too much of a hereditary nobility.

I also think capital gains tax is wrong.

I don't know how I'll fund Universal healthcare in my imaginary world, but there ya go. I don't actually have to be reasoned or consistent, because I'm just nattering on a posting board.

Dude, I want my parents' money. Okay, by the time they die (which will never happen, nosirree) I hope to have plenty of my own, but inheritance has always been a default assumption of western culture, hasn't it? I've inherited from their genes, their minds, their hearts. I figure their pockets can reasonably be mine too.

It doesn't mean I've made it. It just means I'll have it.

Hey -- if I inherit from another country, how would the taxing work?

(Cashmere, I think all this "FEAR ME" crap is a side effect of the Fifth Disease)

Not to revel in your pain, but Fifth Disease. Cracks. Me. Up.

Also, poor you.

I don't actually have to be reasoned or consistent, because I'm just nattering on a posting board.

Do you feel any compulsion to be reasoned or consistent in F2F discussions?

WHAT? This argument means you have to pay BOTH!

No, because the repeal of the estate tax would change the way capital gains are taxed.

Oh yay! Lucy crawled under my bed this morning and I was thinking of you. (My bed has about a foot of clearance, so not such a thing.)

It';s funny, Walter still has the habit of poking his nose out to see if we'll lift up the bed for him, even though he can easily get out on his own. But so much happier.

My thinking on the estate tax is mostly informed by a murder mystery I read (this applies to so much in my life). My understanding is that the basic idea is that the wealth/property/capital should be generating enough revenue to make the tax not much of a burden and if it isn't than the inheritors aren't fit stewards anyway. I kind of like this idea, but I am vaguely pro redistribution of wealth and understand that not everyone is, so I wouldn't argue that the estate tax is absolutely good. I will say that I like it. However, if it is repealed and that increases any net inheritance I may receive, I doubt I will refusing that extra money.

So, on balance, whatever.

Dude, I want my parents' money. Okay, by the time they die (which will never happen, nosirree) I hope to have plenty of my own, but inheritance has always been a default assumption of western culture, hasn't it?

Right, what's the point of building up an estate if you can't pass it along to your children?

I think it kicks in at a million dollars, which I think is too low. But very few people inherit that much as it is.