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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mick Mørmøny who wrote (41071)	9/9/2005 12:09:38 AM
From: Mick Mørmøny	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

How to Assure the Very Rich Stay That Way Published: September 9, 2005 HURRICANE KATRINA may have cost very wealthy people a lot of money. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it may have cost their heirs a lot of money. The cost came not from the direct effects of the disaster. It came because the hurricane's impact on the poor people who remained in New Orleans made it politically unattractive for the Senate to vote on repealing the estate tax this week. Estate tax payments in 2003 graphics8.nytimes.com Such a vote is still possible later in the Congressional session, however, and if it does not pass, there is some speculation that a compromise to cut estate tax rates by two-thirds might be approved. The estate tax affects a surprisingly small number of people. In 2003, the most recent year with numbers available, just 1.25 percent of all deaths resulted in taxable estates, with most of them paying relatively little. But 505 estates, each worth more than $20 million, paid $5.2 billion, a quarter of the money raised by the estate tax - and just 17 percent of the value of the estates. An odd element of estate tax repeal is that while it will have great benefit for the superrich, it will hurt some of the merely rich, who may have to pay capital gains taxes when they sell inherited stocks and homes. Repeal will have no impact at all on the vast majority of people, but you wouldn't know that if you lived in a state with a wavering senator. There, advertising campaigns claim that small-business owners and family farms suffer from the estate tax. In fact, there are provisions in the law to ease the effect on both groups and an estate has to be large to face any tax at all. As a result of the 2001 tax act, which gradually phased out the estate tax, estates of those who die in 2005 will not be taxed on the first $1.5 million of assets, a figure that rises to $2 million next year and to $3.5 million in 2009. Under current law, the estates of the wealthy who die in 2010 will not have to pay any tax at all. But in 2011, the estate tax will come back, a provision that was needed four years ago to make numbers add up. IF Congress does not act first, one can imagine children of very wealthy people suggesting, as 2010 nears an end, that their parents consider the advantage of dying soon. Paging Dr. Kevorkian. While the vast majority of families do not pay estate taxes when a loved one dies, many more benefit from the provision of current law that wipes out capital gain taxes on inherited property. If Dad leaves you millions in Microsoft stock for which he paid very little, your tax basis when you sell is the value of the stock when he died, not when he bought it. In 2010, however, that will change. Up to $1.3 million in assets left to children or others will be exempt from capital gains taxes, as will up to $3 million left to a spouse. But any additional assets will face capital gains taxes when the heirs sell them, taxes that could be quite substantial. To opponents, the estate tax discourages entrepreneurs and taxes money that was already taxed when it was earned. To its supporters, it takes money from those most able to afford it and may limit the expansion of an idle rich class composed of those who inherited wealth rather than created it. But it is also a revenue raiser, and that is important now, with deficits already large before the disaster. Repealing the estate tax would reduce government revenues by about $280 billion from 2011 to 2015 - with much of that money staying in the 500 wealthiest estates each year. It is to be hoped that when the Senate does take up the bill, advocates will explain why it is a good idea to cut taxes on the very wealthy at a time of great need for many. That may not be as attractive politically, but it would be more accurate than to say estate tax repeal is intended to help family farmers. nytimes.com

To: Mick Mørmøny who wrote (41071)	9/9/2005 12:29:50 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

Returning mortgage payments . . . our society is becoming a gigantic welfare roll where Caesar pays out what ever is required to keep the populace quiet. .

To: Mick Mørmøny who wrote (41071)	9/9/2005 8:12:54 PM
From: David Jones	Respond to of 306849

>>>>U.S. housing market, banks are being encouraged to return the most recent mortgage loan payments<<<< The note holders are smart enough to know not to evict for payments not received. Not until damage can be assessed. And that is a BIG unknown. I just spoke with my good friend and contractor by phone. He's having some mold issues with a house he's doing. So called this fellow he knows and I've employed that does such work. While cleaning what this guy called lumber yard mold up. "ya whats the scientific name for that?" He mentioned he's off to Louisiana. Seems there's an s.o.s out for people such as he. Seems his license allows him to mitigate dead bodies. Although he doesn't actually touch or handle the dead he can clean up after such. Also the word is anyone with a state license 'any state' for construction will be allowed to work within the disaster area. That being take contracts in the disaster area for the purpose of what have ya. I was wondering what the process would be to do such but this is third person. And being so please take with large dose of salt!