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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Oblivious who wrote (80621)	9/28/2006 8:55:16 PM
From: Ron	Respond to of 362358

Actually much of it wasn't taxed. Huge tax shelters protect assets of billionaires. Also when you consider many huge fortunes were generated by sucking up billions of dollars in US taxpayers' money in the first place.. why shouldn't estates of the very wealthy be taxed? You doubt this.. read the best book on the subject. The tax laws are written by tax attorneys who make money sheltering the funds of the super-rich. Perfectly Legal, by David Kay Johnston amazon.com when you consider the current President and his siblings are in a position to inherit billions from their father, no surprise Bush is a big backer of efforts to do away with it, throwing more of the tax burden onto the middle class. No one knows precisely how many U.S. dollars have been transferred into offshore tax shelters, or what they’ve cost American taxpayers in lost revenue. Tax Justice Network, a group opposed to the practice, estimates that $1.6 trillion in North American wealth alone may be held in offshore accounts today. One expert estimates the cost to taxpayers from U.S.-held offshore accounts could run as high as $50 billion annually.

To: Oblivious who wrote (80621)	9/28/2006 8:55:28 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 362358

A Trillion Good Reasons to Keep the Estate Tax by Mike Lapham* Published on Friday, April 7, 2006 by CommonDreams.org My grandparents and great-grandparents paid the estate tax when they passed along the family business. Some decade soon, my own parents will. With hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars to gain, I should be cheering for the proposal coming before the Senate in May to do away with the estate tax, which applies only to multimillion dollar inheritances. Instead, I¹m organizing wealthy members of Responsible Wealth to oppose repeal of the estate tax. As multi-millionaires, we have benefited handsomely from all that our country provides: public education, roads, clean water, legal protection, research funding and public safety, just for starters. One Responsible Wealth member, Martin Rothenberg, grew up using the public library, went to school on the GI Bill, received a government fellowship, and built a $30 million software company using publicly-funded research and publicly-educated employees. ³I hope the taxes on my estate will help fund the kind of programs that benefited me and others from humble backgrounds,² he says. Given the choice to be taxed or not, we all tend to choose not. That¹s just human nature. But we have to look at the wider implications of what we ask our elected officials to do for us. In 2001, when Congress voted to phase out and repeal the estate tax, the federal treasury was expecting a $5 trillion surplus. Times have changed, however. Now there¹s over $8 trillion in federal debt. There are a trillion good reasons to retain the estate tax in the years to come. Permanently abolishing the estate tax would cost almost $1 trillion in the first ten years. I believe our country has higher priorities for $1 trillion than giving families like mine a huge tax break. Besides our existing $8 trillion debt, consider some of the additional expenditures coming down the pike. The Iraq War will continue to be costly in both human lives and money. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and his coauthor Linda Bilmes estimate a total budgetary cost of between $750 billion and $1.27 trillion. In late 2003, Congress passed an expansion of the Medicare prescription drug benefit. The Center for Medicare and Medical Services projects a ten-year cost of $797 billion. Congressional leaders have pledged to abolish the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) for individuals, especially as an estimated 30 million taxpayers will pay the AMT by 2010. Eliminating the AMT will reduce federal revenues by $611 to $790 billion over ten years. The Republican leadership in Congress would like to extend the tax cuts they passed in 2001 and 2003. The cost of this extension would be $1 trillion in lost revenue over ten years. Estate tax repeal, combined with these other expenditures, would balloon our national debt in the coming decade. With lighter and lighter taxation of wealthy asset-owners like my family each year, more tax dollars would come out of the pockets of working Americans. In this context, considering estate tax repeal is fiscally and morally irresponsible. A new poll shows that most Americans agree. Voters chose keeping the estate tax as one of the two best ways to reduce the budget deficit. Almost three-quarters support reforming the tax or leaving it intact rather than repealing it. In a society where the economic rules are strongly tilted in favor of the haves at the expense of the have-nots, where tax laws give generous loopholes to the wealthiest among us, the occasion of passing on wealth to the next generation is an appropriate time to tax our accumulated fortunes. Most of the appreciated value of these assets has never been taxed. The choice is whether to remove a tax on estates of more than $3.5 million, affecting only the 6,000 wealthiest individuals who die each year. Responsible Wealth members believe that a fair tax system, fiscal responsibility, and priorities like healthcare and education are better choices than lining the pockets of our progeny. I could be sitting back hoping my parents¹ estate won¹t be subject to the estate tax. Instead, I¹m hoping the majority of U.S. Senators understand what many of them don¹t: that we in the richest one percent can and should pay this very fair tax, as an appropriate way for us to give back and create opportunities for others. *Mike Lapham is Director of the Responsible Wealth project of United for a Fair Economy. ###

To: Oblivious who wrote (80621)	9/28/2006 8:57:12 PM
From: SiouxPal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 362358

A Few Hundred Super Novas by Robert B. Reich Bill Clinton wrapped up his second annual charity extravaganza with commitments worth $7.3 billion to combat illness, poverty, religious and ethnic conflict and climate change – from 215 do-gooding tycoons. Last year's event scored more commitments -- over 300 in all -- but last year's pledges weren't as big, totaling just $2.5 billion. I think it’s wonderful that the world’s biggest billionaires are devoting a portion of their fortunes to good causes. Richard Branson, who made a mint in the "Virgin" Group, pledged that for the next decade he’ll put all his personal profits from the airlines and a rail company he controls – some $3 billion – into non-fossil based energy development. Besides the Clinton billionaire event, the Google tycoons recently announced they’ll put a billion into a for-profit charity to develop non-fossil energy and public health initiatives. Bill Gates is devoting some of his billions to fighting AIDS in Africa. Warren Buffet is turning over some of his billions to Bill Gates to do more good stuff with. A few years back, Ted Turner gave the UN a billion dollars. Remember George Bush I's "thousand points of light"? Now we have a few hundred super novas. I remember a day when government collected billions of dollars from tycoons like these, as well as from ordinary taxpayers, and when our democratic process decided what the billions would be devoted to. In 1960, the moguls of America paid a marginal tax of 90 percent on their incomes, which translated into an effective rate – after all deductions and credits – of some 50 percent. They also paid hefty taxes on their capital gains. And when they died, their heirs paid estate taxes. But in 1960, it was also the case that over two-thirds of Americans trusted government to do the right thing all or most of the time, according to survey research. Now, the moguls pay an effective rate of about 15 percent of their incomes. They don’t pay anything at all if they have clever enough accountants and lawyers to park their loot in tax havens. Their capital gains taxes have been lowered, and their estate taxes are being phased out. What’s more, they're richer today than ever before in history. The latest release of Forbes Magazine's annual listing of the richest 400 Americans is made up solely of billionaires -- for the first time. And what of government? Now, according to surveys, two-thirds of Americans don’t trust government to do anything right. So perhaps it’s understandable that nowadays we have to rely on the generosity of tycoons. When they decide to devote some of their billions to what they consider to be worthwhile causes we applaud their generosity. I don’t want to sound like an ingrate or overly sentimental, but I preferred it the old way. Published on Thursday, September 28, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

To: Oblivious who wrote (80621)	9/28/2006 9:00:07 PM
From: abuelita	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 362358

you seem to have a real hard on over taxes.

To: Oblivious who wrote (80621)	9/28/2006 9:29:40 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 362358

The estate tax's purpose is to keep the country on an even keel. It's the reality of human nature and of our society that wealth, like a snowball rolling downhill, gathers up more wealth and concentrates it. Vast gaps between rich and poor (and ours is now the biggest since the robber baron 20s) create instability and, eventually, revolution. We don't want that, do we? This is an amazing story. Facebook, which started a couple of years ago has a 23 year old CEO and a price tag of reportedly $1billion. Where in history could that much wealth, essentially from scratch, be created in that timeframe with so little risk? The estate tax changes that Republicans want affects 0.27%, no 27%, 0.27% of estates. Why are Republicans so anxious about it when they're cutting college funds and veterans benefits?