E-mail Comment Twitter Facebook Del.icio.us Digg Technorati

Why stop with just a tax on estates?

Nov 14, 2007 In The News, Politics

Warren Buffett thinks your money should belong to the government when you die.

He’s been telling the Senate Finance Committee that, rather than continue a gradual repeal, the estate tax should be reimposed:

“I think we need to … take a little more out of the hides of guys like me,” Buffett told the panel.

One of the world’s richest men and biggest philanthropists, Buffett has been outspoken against efforts, mostly by Republicans, to repeal or reduce the federal tax on inheritances. Democrats argue that a repeal would amount to a huge windfall for the nation’s wealthiest families.

The idea that the government can take any of your money and assets away just because you’ve died is, to me, ludicrous. I earned the money, and presumably paid income taxes on it when I got it… why would you tax me again? It’s tantamount to being penalized for having made too much money. Isn’t individual prosperity the goal of our economic system?

Hell, if you’re going to do that, why stop with just a percentage? Take the whole damned thing! Effective immediately, all personal assets become property of the government when you die. You can will your heirs nothing.

I earn my paycheck fair and square — let me decide what gets done with it, and the government can keep their grubby mitts off of it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 5:48 PM and is filed under In The News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
  • I'm presuming you mean the founders of Google, as it's now a publicly traded company. But yeah, they absolutely could do that, because they created something that the market valued highly enough to pay them that much for it. And if they so chose, I have no problem with them voluntarily donating money to reduce others' tax loads.

    But it's not the numbers that bug me. It's the principle that the government can tell you that, "yeah, you earned what you have and worked hard for it and all, and it's really sweet that you want your spouse and children to have it all now that you've passed on, but they don't deserve it as much as these other people do," and just summarily take it.

    I'm all for philanthropy, but it needs to be voluntary, not compulsory.

    -- Pauley
  • Sara G
    I'm all in favour of taxing the richest 1% to death, or even the richest .01%. The multi-billionaires if it could help reduce the taxes the rest of us have to pay.

    The owners of Google could pay a million dollars to 100 friends and still have 19 billion left. I can't comprehend that. Can't comprehend making more than a few thousand a month...

    That's who Buffet means when he says "guys like me".
  • Ahh, gotcha. I earn my gross, and it's taxed and deducted at that time. I don't want to have my estate taxed on it again when I'm dead. As a LOLCAT might say, "IZ MI MONEH HANZ OFF!" :-P

    -- Pauley
  • :) You said you earn your paycheck fair and square... I wish I could say the same! Apparently I earn all but 37% of it fair and square!

    Just being facetious... *grin*
  • Okay, you lost me. To what part of this are you referring?

    -- Pauley
  • Funny, I only seem to get 63% of mine. How'd you work that gig out?
blog comments powered by Disqus