How about allowing some flexibility in paying the tax, such as installments over a period of time? In the OP's case, the business could continue to run as is, and generate profit which would be used to pay the tax.
I believe this can be done through a combination of trusts and changing the structure of the business from a sole proprietorship. There are all sorts of ways to reduce the burden of the estate tax.
Fair enough - let's ignore those two posters. How would you answer this more nuanced question: why is it fair/expected/logical that, in a society built on taxing transfers of money, that this particular transfer of money be exempt from that? What makes giving money to you when I die different than giving money to you when I'm alive, and why should one be taxable and the other not be taxable?
$150,000 a year can lead one to become a millionaire in as little as ten years assuming they only need $50,000 to live very comfortably, but they would need fifty years to have enough to own $5,000,000 worth of assets. And $150,000 a year is upper class, much to the chagrin of my wealthy friends.
So basically your response to why we should extend tax exemptions/deductions to these transactions above $1 million is "somebody think of the children!" more or less. I don't really think that's a valid grounding for an exemption in these cases - as Major has identified there's lots of pros in favor of the estate tax as a piece of economic policy. The case against appears to be based on appeals to sentiment and emotion via the "family farm"/"mom & pop" business argumetn that the OP is trying to milk here, and that our buddy Hightop is latching onto. Unfortunately, that argument is a myth: So the OP's story of injustice (which again, I'm questioning if it's really even that unjust....?) covers about 13 households out of about 150 million in the U.S. There's always goign to be claims of unfairness around the cutoff of any tax code provision. I'd say one that affects 0.00001% of them does a very good job of being narrowly tailored. Certainly not worth arguing that much about. This flexibility already exists. See abov e.
This assumes no growth in assets. If you save $12,000 per year for 40 years with no return, you'd have $480,000. If you average a 10% rate of return (historical stock market average), you'd have over $5 million.
Why should we not have kings and emperors? I mean their family fought for and won the kingdoms and empires right? What communist idea was it that we over throw them?
I highly encourage you to quit being such a wimp and instead of just being all talk on a BBS, you go do something about it.
I asked him to come at me in brotherly fashion after he threatened me with his deadly gun barrel. I'm still waiting.
This is pretty good conversation. I have nothing to add but . .you guys are doing great Rocket River educational
I decided to run a simulation at $150000 assuming $50000 in living. You could reach $5 million in assets assuming a 5% return in as little as 25 years. But if you were making 950000 and only saving $45000 a year, it would still take 38 years. The median income is $50,233. Under that model, assuming you spend $30,000 and save $20,000 (possible, but improbable) over 45 years of working, you'd have assets of a little over $3 million. Obviously this model did not correctly account for any life events or inflation/deflation. I see the estate tax an issue for the wealthy. Wealth is not defined by an occupation or degree, but the amount posted to an assets sheet. If a farmer has a five million dollar farm, they are wealthy.
