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I've said this before, in the last deathtax thread I saw, but it seems you didn't pay attention:
The rich pay 0 death tax. Period. The Kennedy clan and Gates heirs will pay 0 death tax. They have massive organizations, including lawyers, paid to find and exploit the loopholes written into the tax laws by the rich lawyers and politicians out to avoid having their heirs pay excessive taxes.
The Death Tax exploits only the middle/working class and the unprepared. These people frequently don't know the law and aren't prepared for the consequences. Death Taxes are assessed at current value of property. A couple in Sonoma county might be paying taxes for their home based on the 1946 value of $10K. With their other assets, they might figure their total value at $200-400k (not as much as you might think in CA). When they die, that property will be reassessed, and can easily reach $500-700k all by itself. And the heirs, possiblly unable to pay taxes on that, may have to sell the house in order to pay JUST the Death Taxes on it, never mind the property taxes. (reverse order of taxes also applies). Property values have been skyrocketing in CA since before WWII.
Alternate example: a programmer plugging away at his IPO company working hard to support the company and his family gets creamed by drunk driver. While he's in hospital on life support the company goes public, and suddenly he's wealthy. Life support fails, and he dies. His family is now subject to pay death taxes based on his stock options, which have skyrocketed in value litteraly overnight. Because most people don't expect to die at 35, he didn't have a will ready. Everything gets tied up in probate court, and is subject to 55% taxation.
This is not an extreme or unusual situation (not as unusual as you might think)
The simplest way around the death tax is to set up a living trust. As executor of your trust, you have total control over all assets, and you set up your heir as "first alternate" when you aren't able to run the trust yourself (either through death or impaired mental faculty). The trust then belongs entirely to the heir, who can distrubute and control the funds (even slowly transfering them to his/her own trust). Property will be reassessed during transfer of ownership, and thus subjected to higher property taxes, but all other assets can be transferred virtually tax free. No probate court. No administrative fees.
As to only billing the rich, or someone being too dumb to realize that they've become wealthy, and therefore deserve to be taxed, I say Fuck YOu. With that kind of attitude, you'd spend money hand over fist, with no thought of tomorrow or the future, or of being independant instead of dependant on gov't programs. You'd be just like my step- father, who doesn't understand why the $ isn't just magically there like it used to be, and has to sponge off my mother and his SS check.
People used to save their money in order to help support their children and build up so that their children could lead better lives. The Death Tax punishes them for doing that. And it does NOT affect the truly wealthy.
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