Ka-pi96 said:
Why aren't you opposed to estate tax? Every single penny you earn as already taxed. So it's effectively like the government are saying "yeah, you know that shit tonne of tax you paid during your whole life.... well it's not enough. So we're going to take some more now and there's nothing you can do about it cuz you're dead". There's also literally no justification for it. Income tax, you're profiting off of the national economy so tax makes sense for that. Housing tax, you're gaining the ability to make use of basic public services such as the police, fire department or waste collection, makes sense to pay for that. Tax because you dyed? What logic is there to that? The government don't even pay for the funeral or anything so it's not as if that's where the tax money is going. |
The dead person is not paying any taxes. Because they're dead. Dead men tell no tales and pay no taxes. There are plenty of things they could do with their money when they're gone that will incur no taxes at all.
The person paying the tax is the person who is inheritting what will likely be a minimum of 5 million dollars and did nothing really to earn it aside from being liked by someone who died.
As for the justification, it's pretty basic. The government needs money to function. Programs that are necessary for the successful functioning of a society cost money, and we have to get that money from somewhere. The idea is to take the money from people who will be least burdened by it. The estate tax doesn't kick in until about 5 and a half million dollars, and at that point, the effective tax rate is about 10% if you have a really shitty estate lawyer. Before you cry for victims of the estate tax, remember that someone who is inherriting 7 million dollars, will pay about 600,000 in taxes. We're talking about the difference between being able to buy 10 lamborghinis or only being able to buy 8.
You can argue that it's unfair, but then life is sometimes unfair. For instance, it's unfair that one person is going to inherit millions of dollars, through no effort of their own, and another, through no fault of their own, isn't able to afford basic things like healthcare, food, or housing. We don't try to completely balance things out by distributing the money equally, but we do try to redistribute enough so that the basic needs of the citizenry are met and we can have a functional society. That's kind of the basic function of government.
