News Hounds

Geezzzzzzzz...Republicants are so CHEAP!!!!
"If you want my money, you will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands!!!"
But if you don't have any dough, you are worthless and will stay poor forever. These chumps should shut up and RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE!!!!!

Posted by: sum dood at April 13, 2005 07:25 PM

Melanie,

I just got done watching Lou Dobbs and now this. The regular, working class person doesn't need to worry about the estate tax because, like you pointed out - they don't have an estate that is 1.5 million dollars or more.

Here's Cavuto, charging on in defense of the rich again. Any conceivable break must be given to the rich. Why? Because Cavuto says so. They are needlessly worrying millions of people who this won't affect - but who won't get the 'catch' and just see the words 'death tax' and think - 'gotta get rid of that, can't be taxin dead people'.

Oh, give me strength - I'm working on taxes (yes, I know, last minute Scarlet) and it seems these tax laws do everything to screw the middle class. My son makes a pittance at his part time job while he attends college and he has to pay taxes?

This country is going to the dogs. I shouldn't say that - I love dogs and I, of course, love News Hounds.

Keep up the good work, girl - it's 'got' to pay off.

Scarlet, PbD

Posted by: Scarlet, PbD at April 13, 2005 07:49 PM

Now that I think of it -- does Cavuto 'ever' bring up outsourcing or illegal aliens? Lou Dobbs does, every night on his show.

Does Cavuto 'ever' do stories on the poor or middle class? They count in the economic scheme, they foot a lot of the bill.

I really would like to know if he 'ever' does stories with concern for poor or middle class Americans.

Scarlet, PbD

p.s. Whoever might be watching - the Italian Journalist who got shot by the US in Iraq is on 60 Minutes II right now - CBS.

Posted by: Scarlet, PbD at April 13, 2005 08:05 PM

Bush has referred to it as the 'estate tax' since he started talking about it in the 2000 election. His plan to get rid of it was what started my swing towards giving him my vote over Gore.

I think you're grasping at straws saying it's only Republicans who refer to this as the 'death tax' in order to scare people...whenever I've talked to someone, Republican or Democrat, about it, death and estate are interchangable; you pay it when you die, after all.

Honestly, I liked Kerry's plan for the death tax just fine...raise the bar high enough that little people won't get hit. Ofcourse, the super rich will shelter it anyways.

--trb

Posted by: trb at April 13, 2005 08:26 PM

The first person on record to call it the "death tax" was Karl Rove in an interview with the Weekly Standard during Bush's first campaign in 1999.

Posted by: jeff "Evangelicals are like cockroaches " valcarcel at April 13, 2005 08:32 PM

I'll tell you what's not grasping at straws - is Cavuto's oh so overwhelming 'concern' for rich people.

They have so many 'shelters' already it makes me sick. They don't pay taxes. 60% of corporations paid zero in taxes last year.

Something is wrong with this system and it smells.

Scarlet, PbD

Posted by: Scarlet, PbD at April 13, 2005 08:37 PM

Maybe Bush calls it the estate tax and not the death tax I have seen him describe it as a 'tax on death.' What swung my vote from Bush over to Gore is that Bush is a complete fucking idiot and his specious justification for removing a tax designed to encourage charity and prevent the creation of a heriditary gentry class is blatantly cynical and self-serving. He said it wasnt fair that you had to pay taxes twice. That is absurd. I pay sales tax on a can of soda and then I pay my income taxes. Should we abolish the sales tax, too? We could call it the food tax and then the fox rubes will get all worked up over it

Posted by: Redder than Red at April 13, 2005 09:09 PM

> Should we abolish the sales tax, too?

Five states already have. Sales tax is a local tax, paid to the state, I believe. Some states also have sales taxes for localities, paid to the locality (cities, etc). However, you're comparing apples and oranges since in the case of the estate tax it's the federal government taxing you twice.

--trb

Posted by: trb at April 13, 2005 09:29 PM

Lets see if I can explain the ESTATE tax to people here who think the tax is unfair.

People with a lot of money have a tendency to hold assets throughout their lifetime without having to declare the appreciation attributed to it as income. I'm talking primarily about stocks and other negotiable assets in this example.

The estate laws as they stand now allow the assets that have appreciated over the lifetime of the decedant to be passed to their heirs tax free. On top of that the heirs show the appreciated amount (date of death value) as their basis for gain or loss calculations.

When the heirs decide to sell the assets the gain or loss is determined based on the date of death value. Therefore THEY realize a benefit for the taxes they do not have to pay on the sale.

In return for the benefit the US Gov't expects the estate to pay a tax on the value of the estate that exceeds $1.5 million.

Now I see the GOP trying to eliminate the estate tax while STILL allowing the assets to be passed on to the heirs with a stepped up basis. I guess it's their backwards way of cutting the capital gains tax to zero for the rich.

I don't suppose they could package the tax break that way so they found another way to do it. Very clever!

Posted by: Diane at April 13, 2005 09:37 PM

R than R,

We didn't tax food when I lived in Pennsylvania. We had what was called a luxury tax. If something was needed, such as food, it didn't get taxed.

I was shocked when I moved to Georgia and they taxed my grocery food!

I do love that Florida does not have a state tax - and Bill Nelson made it so we can deduct our sales tax on our federal tax forms.

Tax the rich people! They get out of it all of their lives - even GWB/BB said so. So they finally pay something after they pass - they got a free ride their whole lives!

Scarlet, PbD

Posted by: Scarlet, PbD at April 13, 2005 09:40 PM

There were some funny provisions of the Estate Tax, for example a foreign widow or widower, might have to pay 50%. That would mean, in some cases, selling any property to cover the Estate Tax. If the entire Estate, money and stepped up value of property, equaled a certain amount. American widows and widowers did not have to worry about this provision, it pasted to the remaining spouse tax free. They were worried that someone foreigners would leave for home, with all those American dollars.

I think changes could have been made to protect the people, they were supposedly worried about. Small Businesses, family farms etc., without repelling the entire law. Some wealthy people argued for this way back when, but no one in this Administration was listening…………….what’s new!

Posted by: anisha PbD at April 13, 2005 10:45 PM

The Rob's Tax Plan

Guaranteed to rid the deficit in a matter of one year! Yes, one year! How you ask? It's really simple. Each time a Republican lie, the liar pays the government a nickle. Each time the press repeats this lie, their corporate owners (a.k.a. Rupert Murdoch) pays $100 to the government. It's guaranteed to work and it just might put Faux out of business.

Posted by: Rob S., PsD at April 13, 2005 10:57 PM

Honestly, I liked Kerry's plan for the death tax just fine...raise the bar high enough that little people won't get hit. Ofcourse, the super rich will shelter it anyways.

--trb

Raise the bar high enought that little people won't get hit - how many little people do you know with 1.5 million dollar estates that this would devastate?

Scarlet, PbD

Posted by: Scarlet, PbD at April 13, 2005 11:08 PM

You might be surprised, Scarlet. When they start taking stepped up values on say a business or a farm, these items can add up, there might not be all that much in hard cold cash. If they do, the heirs might have to sell their farm to pay the tax bill. Since the farm is their home and probably their lively hood, they would be homeless and unemployed, and still have to pay Uncle Sam 50% of what ever they raised by the sale.

Posted by: anisha PbD at April 13, 2005 11:18 PM

Slightly OT, but we just finished our taxes and they are about the same as last year. Where's my tax relief??? Damn, is some good ol' boy lyin' to me?

Posted by: middleclassnobody at April 14, 2005 02:13 AM

Now I see the GOP trying to eliminate the estate tax while STILL allowing the assets to be passed on to the heirs with a stepped up basis. I guess it's their backwards way of cutting the capital gains tax to zero for the rich.

I don't suppose they could package the tax break that way so they found another way to do it. Very clever!

Posted by: Diane at April 13, 2005 09:37 PM
----------------------------------------------

Thank you Diane!
Email that to Neil Cavuto if you feel like it.

Posted by: Kent Brockman at April 14, 2005 02:55 AM

"House lawmakers voted 272-162 to prevent the tax on inherited estates from reappearing after its one-year disappearance in 2010. The bill would end the tax at a cost of roughly $290 billion over the next decade"

In contrast, the Democratic plan would have only cost $70 billion.

"Most estates already are exempt from federal taxes. The Internal Revenue Service said just over 2 percent of people who died in 2001 left estates subject to taxation."

Only 2%. Hmm. Who's getting the break here again, Beach and Neil? Dry cleaner operators and small businessmen, my ass.

The link to the full article is here:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050414/ap_on_go_co/estate_tax

Posted by: Argos at April 14, 2005 03:09 AM

trb,

A post of yours seems to be MIA - on farm taxes. Anyway, on farms - I think farming, at least family run farms, should have a unique tax structure. Farming should not be seen as a business per se., but the foundation of all life sustaining enterprises for the human population.

Posted by: Kent Brockman at April 14, 2005 03:23 AM

Kent,

That's a great idea.

One of the problems I've seen before though, was that farmers would rotate crops - no big deal - except what they would do is plant "junk crops" -inedible and unsalvagable crops, either because they were planted too late, or because of they planted a strain of wheat that was like a weed - completely unusable (and the seed was extremely cheap). Then what they would do was write the whole thing off as a loss. It was an extremely unethical thing to do, but it was a loophole in the law that allowed them to collect insane amounts of subsidy the next year.

(I personally know a farmer who pulled this stunt about once every couple of years and pulled in a few million for a minimal seed and labor investment.)

If something like that could be stopped, getting better funding to help grow the farming industry might be easier.

Posted by: Argos at April 14, 2005 03:40 AM

ANISHA:"If they do, the heirs might have to sell their farm to pay the tax bill."

This has never happened. NEVER.

Posted by: Steve J. at April 14, 2005 06:17 AM

Kent, Scarlet, Anisha

> Anyway, on farms - I think farming, at least
> family run farms, should have a unique tax
> structure.

Absolutely. I liked Kerry's plan because, and I don't remember it exactly, but it was either to raise the cap like Bush did or specifically exempt farms. Scarlet, the classic example for farms is to examine the cost of their equipment, like combines, that can cost/be worth in the hundres of thousands of dollars for a single machine. Add those up, then add in the price of their land, buildings, animals, etc, and you can pretty easily have a family farm in Iowa that is worth over the cap.

My way of looking at the estate tax is this...if they dropped the amount down low, say $5k, a regular Joe like me would have his investments, savings and property be taxed at the time of death. It makes no sense to me that the government should do it, so why would I feel it's right for them to do it to people just because they're wealthy?

An interesting historical context to the estate tax...the estate tax has often been thought a wealth redistribution tax, since proceeds from it are negligible in an economy the size the US generates, but Teddy Roosevelt thought that the rich owed the government, not the people, the money because their lands and assets were protected by laws and the US military. His thought was that without the US backing, they wouldn't have been able to hold on to their riches and therefore owed extra on accumulated wealth. I disagree, but it's an interesting take that I hadn't heard before.

--trb

Posted by: trb at April 14, 2005 07:22 AM

It makes no sense to me that the government should do it, so why would I feel it's right for them to do it to people just because they're wealthy?
-------------------------------------------------
Because the wealthy have already had their unfair benefits of tax loopholes and tax cuts that the middle class and poor haven't.

Everyone knows that rich people 'shelter' their money - they don't pay taxes. It's the poor shlubs who don't have all of these special 'itemized' deductions who suffer and continue to pay improportunate percentages of their income for taxes.

Everything this president has done since he's become president has been for 'his base'. Well, I'm tired of his base and I don't wish to see them get anymore breaks.

Scarlet, PbD

Posted by: Scarlet, PbD at April 14, 2005 09:30 AM

You socialist extemist liberals won't be happy till we pay taxes on paying taxes. Only liberals could find a reason to get mad about a tax being done away with. You deserve the name as "tax and spend liberals". You losers just aren't happy if you're not spending someone else's money.

Posted by: Chris at April 14, 2005 10:34 AM

Chris,
Shut up and go home! Repealing a tax that only affects the rich and then expecting me to be happy about it is ludicrous. Cutting taxes for the rich and expecting me to buy into the idea that their savings will "trickle" back into the economy and down to me is either complete fiction or delusional fantasy. Governments like businesses cannot operate unless they generate revenue, and our tax system is like asking middle and lower class people to pay more for goods at a store than the rich. How is that a good thing????? OUT.

aaron, CMVLWC

Posted by: aaron_tx at April 14, 2005 11:13 AM

The term "death tax" was probably coined by James Martin and is a perfect example of political marketing. Frank Luntz loves because it tricks the public into thinking it is something that it is not. Just like "tax relief" instead of "tax cuts" and "personal accounts" rather than "private accounts". George Bush claimed many times during the 2000 election campaign that he personally knew families that had lost the family farm due to estate taxes. Reporters including David Cay Johnston (Perfectly Legal) have searched and never found one single case where a family lost a farm due to the estate tax. When confronted Bush still claimed he had spoked with these families but never cited one specific example. It is simply a lie. The real reason Republicans want to repeal the Estate Tax is because logically a repeal of the Gift Tax would follow. With the Gift tax repealed and the current step-up rule for inheritance of stock options, anyone could bank on an old dying relative to avoid ever paying capital gains taxes.

Posted by: J at April 14, 2005 11:49 AM

Chris, do you even know what a "socialist extremist" is, or is it just a phrase you've picked up from your favorite right-wing talking head? I have not seen a single instance of socialist extremism here. Left-leaning thought, sure, but "socialist extremism?" Not at all.

Repubs are trying to protect the extremely wealthy yet again. In case you need this further broken down: the government needs tax revenue to do...well...everything government does. So in addition to the mega-corporations skipping town on corporate taxes, we're going to let the mega-rich owners of those mega-corporations skip out on taxes that generate nice monetary influx for the government but barely affect the rich bottom line (even if you take a million dollars out of $100 million, that's still $99 million left--I hardly pity the person in that situation)? Brilliant plan. As long as you don't expect the government to, ya know, *do* anything.

Posted by: SeesThroughIt at April 14, 2005 01:34 PM

“Cutting taxes for the rich and expecting me to buy into the idea that their savings will "trickle" back into the economy and down to me is either complete fiction or delusional fantasy”

Aaron is exactly right. Trickle down economics does not work and furthermore the fact that the wealthy die with these huge estates contradicts this outdated theory even further. The super rich don’t or can’t spend all their money so it is not money in the economy anyway. Can someone explain how millions sitting in a trust fund for Jr. benefits our economy? They can’t take it with them but they still hold onto it and try to pass it along to their heirs. I suppose out of hatred for the very government that has enabled them to accumulate this wealth and then protect it for them.

Posted by: Tim M at April 14, 2005 01:42 PM

Quick clarification - Some here have contended that the estate tax is something YOU pay. No. YOU are dead. YOU pay nothing. It's not even YOUR money anymore. It is a taxation of your relatives' income, income that you have given them. Why shouldn't a gift be taxed?

Posted by: vance at April 14, 2005 01:51 PM

Me great granpappies bought land ~$80 acre. If you think this tax only applies to "the rich" you are a complete imbecile. Every other rancher I know is striving to "die broke" to avoid this damnable idiot Democrat tax. Oh that's right ranching is evil cowsploitation and we deserve to be taxed out of business. Tell me, are Birkenstocks made with leather?

Posted by: Identity at April 14, 2005 02:12 PM

Identity wrote:

If you think this tax only applies to "the rich" you are a complete imbecile. Every other rancher I know is striving to "die broke" to avoid this damnable idiot Democrat tax.

----------

You are buying into exactly what the Republican party wants you to. To qualify for an Estate Tax the estate must be worth more than 1.5 million per person. That's 3 million for a married couple. This tax currently affects only 1% of all estates in the United States. The Democrats are hoping to raise this limit just as an appeasement to Republicans so they won't repeal the tax entirely. Like I said before, however, the Republicans want it repealed for very different reasons.

Posted by: J at April 14, 2005 02:29 PM

I'd say it must only be affecting a select few when only 2% of all people pay the tax. Lemme see...If you were to die today, your heirs would only pay "death taxes" if the value of your estate exceeded $l.5 million.
(According to the IRS)

So, what you're saying is the IRS is wrong on their own info? Or is every cattle rancher that only pulls in 1 million dollars considered "poor"?

Posted by: Argos at April 14, 2005 02:32 PM

And you only pay taxes on the portion that exceeds the $1.5. So if it's, say, $50,000 over, you only pay taxes on that $50,000 - not on the entire $2mil.

Posted by: Kim, Pb.D at April 14, 2005 02:57 PM

Identity, ranchers are going broke because of the vast centralization of the entire cattle industry. The estate tax is not the enemy of the independent rancher. ConAgra is. IBP is. And guess what? Bush looooooves Big Cattle, even though Big Cattle is stomping out the individual ranchers Bush claims to want to defend. Bush is not on your side. Republicans are not on your side. And the estate tax, as noted above, has not had an effect on any farms. Bush's lie has been exposed, and yet you're still buying it. You want to support the people who want to destroy your granpappy.

Now, if you'll excuse me, my leather Adidas and I are gonna go head to In-n-Out for a nice double cheeseburger.

Posted by: SeesThroughIt at April 14, 2005 03:08 PM

I think for every issue brought up on this site, we should determine one (and just one) rebutting catch-phrase to use on every idiot spewing such republican bs.

How many times did we have to hear "flip-flopper" in the last election. That crap works on the simpletons that buy this crap. They are the people who we need to get through to.

Any ideas?

Posted by: Stephanie at April 14, 2005 03:39 PM

When one looks at W's success in business, I can see why he feels that he will need his dad's wealth after his dad is dead. He knows he's capable of blowing through 1.5m very quickly.

Posted by: Michael Jones at April 14, 2005 05:35 PM

"Beach said, "if we want to tax super-rich people we have a perfectly good tax system in place and it's called the income tax, and we have to eliminate the loopholes there."

You know, you'd think William Beach of the Heritage Foundation would know the difference between income tax and estate tax. Or maybe he's really advocating making people pay income tax on the appreciation of their unsold assets? Boy, now wouldn't that start a revolution?

Posted by: Robrob at April 14, 2005 07:12 PM

God bless the death tax! There is NO reason that it should not continue to bring money into the government. The evil republicans say that the money was already taxed once when first earned through the income tax and capital gains tax, but who cares! Why not have the fed govt tax the same money over and over?! To hell with fairness, we're talking about the rich. WE are entitled to their money through government redistribution. Who cared who actually earned it, ITS OURS!! The death tax should apply yearly, not just when you die!

Posted by: SuperLiberal at April 14, 2005 08:51 PM

And you only pay taxes on the portion that exceeds the $1.5. So if it's, say, $50,000 over, you only pay taxes on that $50,000 - not on the entire $2mil.

Posted by: Kim, Pb.D at April 14, 2005 02:57 PM
=========================================
They always gloss over this fact. They also gloss over the fact that the rate is graduated - so that the $50K in your example would be taxed at (IIRC) 14 or 17% - the 55% they scream about only applies to the amount that exceeds $?? (I think it was $5M when I looked it up a few years ago, but has probably been raised since)

The RW screams about the gummint taking 55% (some even exaggerate to 60%) of every $ you leave to your heirs.

Some purveyor of estate planning services - advertizing on FoxNews, natch - claiming that, unless you purchase their services, the gov't "can take up to 75% of your estate!"

I'll bet they make lots of money from Fox-watchin' sub-millionaires...

Posted by: SteevK at April 14, 2005 10:39 PM

This has never happened. NEVER.
Posted by: Steve J. at April 14, 2005 06:17 AM

I think this is typical of this administration‘s, divide and conquer techniques and if your statement that no one has lost a farm is true, then I am glad.

There is no need to do away with the Tax in it’s entirety, because I do believe it helps fund programs that should be funded. Just make sure it is fairly applied and doesn’t hurt those on the lower end of the scale. You should not have to sell everything your parents spent their lives earning, to pay a tax - any tax. Not if your parents paid taxes all their lives anyway. On the other hand, I feel no need to fund Paris Hilton’s life style, if she had to get by with a few million less. I doubt I would cry for her.

I used the example of the farm, to show that it wasn’t necessarily hard cold cash that was being taxed. That you could be worth more, than you think, on paper.

As trb explained:
the classic example for farms is to examine the cost of their equipment, like combines, that can cost/be worth in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single machine. Add those up, then add in the price of their land, buildings, animals, etc, and you can pretty easily have a family farm.

Moreover, the value of these items is not what your parents paid for them, but what they are worth today, at the time of the death. The Death Tax had some clauses that could trip you up and you would not be aware, until they bit you. You will notice I used the word “had”. I am not sure this is true today, I am talking about the law as it was before any of the breaks were put into place. In my experience it wasn’t a graduated tax law either. I understood that if the estate went over the limits, taxes would be paid on the entire estate, which seems to conflict with Kim’s understanding.

The Dems have some compromised limits that I think would work, like Social Security, everything can be fixed. I see no reason to just discard and start again with something new.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=4&u=/ap/20050414/ap_on_go_co/estate_tax&sid=84439559

Posted by: anisha PbD at April 15, 2005 02:00 AM