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{ Category Archives } Estate Tax

Richard Epstein on the estate tax

Richard Epstein, responding to Paul Krugman’s Op-Ed in the New York Times, defends the Republic position on unemployment benefits, the estate tax and health care. With regard to the estate tax he writes: So let’s start with the estate tax and ask whether a tax that exempts 99.75%, of all estates, as the Democrats propose, [...]

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Will Congress’ inaction on the estate tax cause more deaths in 2010?

Paul L. Caron, the TaxProf blogger, provided the following chart from a 2006 article by Joshua S. Gans and Andrew Leigh, “Toying with Death and Taxes: Some Lessons from Down Under”.  The chart purports to show that a significant number of the deaths in Australia were shifted from the week before to the week after July 1, 1979, the [...]

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House to vote on estate tax amendment

The House of Representatives passed H.R. 4154 on December 3, 2009. The bill freezes the estate tax exclusion at $3.5 million with a maximum tax rates of 45%.

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Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on the estate tax

Analysis of an interview with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, discussing the estate tax and the moral obligation of the wealthy to society. Should Warren Buffett’s philanthropy be done on a taxable basis?

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Hard work and dumb luck

My recent post, Tough luck for dumb luck, linked an article by Robert H. Frank which disagreed with the contentions that the tax system strains the vital connection between individual effort and reward. Robert H. Frank argued that luck contributed heavily to success, and that “well-paid Americans owe an enormous, if rarely acknowledged, debt to [...]

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Tough luck for dumb luck

I previously linked several editorials arguing for and against the estate tax.  A frequent argument in favor of lower taxes, heard again at the recent anti-tax tea parties, is that taxing income and wealth strains the relationship between effort and reward.  Higher taxes are a disincentive to working hard. The New York Times recently published [...]

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Estate Tax Debate: Recent Editorials

With the estate tax to be repealed at the end of 2009 unless new legislation is passed, the political debate over the economic and moral value of the estate tax is being renewed.  The Senate Finance Committee is considering the Baucus proposal, which I wrote about last week. The House Ways and Means Committee is [...]

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Estate Tax: The Baucus Proposal

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) recently announced proposed legislation that would amend the tax code. Among other provisions, the bill, known as “The Taxpayer Certainty and Relief Act of 2009,” (S. 722) would implement some much-discussed and anticipated changes to the federal gift and estate tax law. The last major change to the [...]

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