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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (218734)	1/15/2002 10:17:33 AM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Lets set emotion aside for a second. Do you think this is fair? What about the principle of equal protection? How is the death tax more of a burden for the families of 911 victims than anyone else? WSJ The Widows Triumph Ever have one of those days where you roll out of bed, gulp your black coffee and pump yourself up for the big fight you know is coming? Well, with the Internal Revenue Service preparing to pursue the taxable estates of foreigners who lost their spouses on September 11, we were ready to rumble. And then Congress surprised us, and probably even itself, and did the right thing. The surprise is the Victims of Terrorism Tax Relief Act, and actually it wasn't totally the right thing. But we'll get back to that below. As these columns first reported when we wrote about the case of Lucy Thompson on October 12, U.S. estate-tax law lacks a spousal exemption for foreigners. This made widows and orphans juicy targets for the IRS to pounce on whatever cash and assets the victims of September 11 had left them. If the numbers add up the way we've been told, Congress has now granted them a reprieve. Congress did this by extending to those who were killed on September 11 the same special tax treatment granted to soldiers who fall in the line of duty. Though not designed with the foreign widows and widowers in mind, these people have nonetheless received a huge assist. That's because the new law grants the special tax status to the estate of the deceased, so the spousal exemption doesn't really matter. The math is extremely complicated, and involves tax treaties with different countries. But we're told it works out to shielding the first $8.5 million from federal tax in the absolute best cases (for those foreigners living here) to $600,000 in the worst (those nonresident). Even in the worst case, that is 10 times the protection they would have received otherwise, with much lower tax rates. As such it brings a special measure of mercy for the hundreds of foreign families who lost loved ones on September 11, including 53 British, 24 Japanese, 17 Mexicans, 18 Koreans and many dozens of others who still have mortgages and college tuitions to pay as they try to keep their families together. Of course, the simplest and more humane solution would have been to abolish the estate tax, which is scheduled for extinction anyway, though not before 2010 and then for one year. That's precisely what Washington Representative Jennifer Dunn proposed in her Widows of the World Equity Act. But that would have required more compassion than politicians can muster at one sitting. In fact, Congress seemed ready to consider any kind of relief, including making all of the dead U.S. citizens, rather than repeal the estate tax. And before we praise the Members of Congress too much, no doubt the fear of special publicity that would have focused on the September 11 widows was part of their motivation. Then there is the twisted moral logic of carving out just this estate-tax exception. A British woman living in America whose husband was killed in the World Trade Center attacks can now collect whatever was left behind without fear of the IRS. But a British woman whose husband is killed by, say, a drunk driver or heart attack still faces an estate tax on her assets starting at as little as $60,000 (foreigners don't get the U.S. minimum exemption of $1 million) with confiscatory rates of up to 55%. The IRS philosophy here is that it's all their money, and that a foreign spouse might up and leave the country before the IRS gets its share. The case of the September 11 widows illuminates that the real objection to the estate tax is moral. It is a political grab for assets on which taxes have already been paid once, if not twice. The spouses of September 11 may be catching a deserved break, but the real solution is to abolish the estate tax for everyone forever.

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (218734)	1/15/2002 10:27:53 AM
From: JBTFD	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769670

I think this may be selective memory on your part. He did say that the tax cuts were responsible for renewed budget deficits. Which is true by the way. Bush tax cuts caused the recession. You got any quote on this? Not a quote by someone commenting on his statement, but his statement itself. If he did actually say this I agree it is a lie. The recession had already started by the time the tax cuts took place, or at least there was not time for a causal effect.