As I understand it, if you stay at or below the current $12,000 it doesn't count against the lifetime $1,000,000 gift exclusion since it is not considered a "taxable" gift. If you gave $20,000 to one person, then $8,000 would come off the $1,000,000 lifetime exclusion.
BTW did you see that I said I did not care if we abolished the inheritance tax as long as we taxed the same group the same amount? You continue to astound with lack of self awareness and a propensity to exhibit often in nearly the same sentence what you complain about. You are the one who dogmatically in about a two sentence post said "double taxation" like King's X, evil per se, what more needs to be said about such an absolute evil than to mention its so called existence. Now you attempt to discuss the evils of the so called double taxation concept and not be dogmatic about it. Well I guess that is a step in the right direction. Weak, the inheritance tax has been around since before the income tax and most other taxes. I'm not sure whether it is exactly like most taxes is determinative of its fairness or usefulness as a fund raiser or as an instrument of social policy. I think we got it that you don't think it is "fair", that it irks you as it is (Oh My God!) "double" taxation or at least looks like that to some people , though your post can be parsed to mean you yourself are claiming to not be that dumb.
Sishir, such a great post and an example of what American solidarity used to be. You know: "Ask not what your country can do for you" Now you see folks like the Bushes and the Carlyle Group making most of their money off the government,while trying to cut their own taxes with special bills or defund programs that don't enrich them personally. You see chickenhawks advocating frequent wars they would never fight in or have their kids fight in. You have folks like Bigtexx going to a state subsidized school and then advocating that so many taxes be abolished that other kids won't get the helping had that they just got. On and on.
Nope, didn't see that. What are you talking about? I never said anything about 'evil' or 'absolute,' joker. Those are your words. You seem to be confusing your own rhetoric with mine. It isn't a new tactic for you to construct strawmen, but at least make them remotely similar instead of wildly inaccurate. The way you're doing it just makes you look silly. I said in my first freakin post that I was ok with it absent a compelling reason otherwise. Please explain how that is possibly 'dogmatic.' You're spew is pretty ridiculous.
You are right , I stand corrected. Was going from faulty memory of your post, which I just reread. Now if you would just admit that your claim of me being dogmatic was similarly ill advised in light of the fact that I was flexible on the inheritance tax, we can be cyber friends again. Hayes, you just like to argue and that is ok or at least an understandable vice since, I have been accused of that by some in real life(falsely of, course).
A couple of great posts (in my opinion) illustrate how silly this argument is, and how much it's clear that my analogy of poor whites fighting for some nebulous future "right," to own slaves, when in reality they were simply fighting for the rich plantation owners, was on target. Why the battle over the, "strawman," of the estate tax, with no realistic way presented to replace that income stream for the Federal treasury, during a period of record deficits? The AMT affects millions and millions of middle class Americans, but gets diddly attention here, or nationally. That's the tax you should be fighting to reform. Simply a great story and a great post. Fight for reform of the Alternative Minimum Tax... the estate tax has little effect on the vast majority of Americans, and I've yet to read one argument for doing away with it that is credible, in my opinion, and also gives a credible alternative for bringing that income stream into the Federal treasury. I think some of you are carrying water for the very wealthy, which includes the top people in this Administration and those in Congress, but primarily their campaign contributors and "earmark" buddies, and don't even realize it. By the way... did you know that the GOP Congress has replaced seniority as the basis for committee, and sub-committee chairmanships, with the new basis for getting those chairmanships based on who can raise the most campaign cash for other members of the GOP Congress?? And who does that benefit? You? Me? The country? No. It benefits the wealthy and big corporations, and the continued spread of corruption in Washington. The Republican leadership had begun assigning chairmanships in part on the basis of how much campaign money a member had raised for other members, and Lewis and his rivals for the post — Reps. Ralph Regula of Ohio and Harold Rogers of Kentucky— each launched a fundraising blitz. And each concentrated on the industry that had benefited from spending appropriated by their subcommittee, which in Lewis' case meant defense. White leapt to the forefront of Lewis' effort, organizing a steady stream of fundraisers for him and other Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club, a social venue for members of the party. "We'd get e-mails from her asking us to go to her events about once a week," a lobbyist for a major defense firm recalled, speaking on condition of anonymity because he still lobbies Lewis. "We all kind of laughed about it. But everyone in town noticed how active she was." Lewis raised more than $800,000 for his political action committee in the 2004 election cycle and won the contest, upsetting the more-senior Regula. White's judgment was not perfect. In 1994, she got caught up along with a number of congressional aides and lobbyists in a pyramid-style party game called Airplane that entailed enlisting new participants to pay $1,000 so that earlier players could receive payments of up to $8,000. All pyramid games inevitably swindle some players. But in Washington, the game also created the appearance of a different kind of impropriety: It was an opportunity for lobbyists to hand thousands of dollars to congressional aides they sought to influence. http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/06/3earmark.html Keep D&D Civil.
Deckard Just when you think you have heard it all. Please explain how this is not just a modern repeat of the worst excesses of the old boss system from the 19th Century. Don't forget how these folks like to privatize government services and then give the contracts for profit to whoever contributes the most to their campaigns. There are reforms needed to civil service laws, but there is a reason we set it up in the first place to get rid of such crony patronage systems.
I read that this morning with my mouth hanging open in astonishment. Seriously. I don't know how this had managed to slip by my radar screen until now, but it managed to. It's simply astounding, and indefensivable. Washington is for sale in a way we having seen in decades, and the company is named the GOP. Don't forget how these folks like to privatize government services and then give the contracts for profit to whoever contributes the most to their campaigns. glynch, this is going on wholesale in Texas. Literally wholesale. Believe me, I know people who know what's going on, from the inside. It's fought, but little can be done when your job is on the line if you make too big a stink. The wholesale corruption going on in Texas and in Washington leaves me at a loss for words. That's damned hard to do, when it comes to your local Blade Runner! Keep D&D Civil.
! You seem to be more plugged into TX government than I am. I did work for the state for 14 mos many years ago and have close family members and friends who still do. Some have been in the position to know a bit. I keep up with it some. I had Tex in mind when I talked of newly privatized services going to the group that contributes to the campaign the most. The Carlyse Group types do basically the same thing in Washington. It is unbelievable but we are going to need a whole many year movement like the Progressive Era or the Good Government Era to clean up this mess. Merely electing a few Hiliary type Dems won't do it. We are very short of Muckrakers like we had back in the last days of government reform. The problem is that with the media largely under control by the same folks, a major goal of which is to discredit government to garner more tax breaks or to profit personally in the manner we are discussing, where is the impetus going to come from? They have many billions at stake and will fight viciously to defend their profits off of corrupt government practices. As we see on this bbs, the mindless hatred of government and the bumper slogans of this many year effort are still very much alive even among those who don't profit from it. Sadly it might have to get much worse before the majority take their minds off diversions like American idol and fundamentalist religion to address these issues. I can still remember a program where George Will was gloating and objected to a proposal by sayihg that it violated a central tenet of the conservative movment by suggesting that government should not always be trashed
SC, good post. Thank you. Similarly I did not remember you saying you were ok with this if the money could be raised somewhere else. But for the record my accusation of being dogmatic was based on your strawman characterization of me, not your position vis-a-vis the tax. However, that you've retracted shows there are limits to your dogma.....er, I mean that you're not necessarily dogmatic.....ummm, that you aren't dogmatic? I hope we can still be 'cyberfriends.' Whether or not this is true doesn't have any bearing on whether or not I'm right.
So Glynch now that you and Hayes are friends again maybe you should hire him as your wine steward. Deckard, totally agree that the AMT needs to be reformed and I suspect that is one issue that you will find broad based agreement on this forum. I hadn't heard aobut that Republicans had based committee chairmanships on fundraising. I know that in some Republicans had been threatening to keep Arlen Specter from taking the chairmanship of the Senate Judicial Committee and he had to publicly promise that he would treat Bush appointees fairly. That was an astounding humiliation of a ranking senator by his own party and of all people someone like Specter who is known for his fairness. Although dropping seniority to base chairmanships on fundraising seems to me a new low. That's probably a topic that deserves its own thread.
