But Rhubarb inpsired me to think about estate taxes.
I wonder what would happen to our economy if inheritance was done away with. If, when you (and your spouse) died, if you hadn’t chosen charities to give the money to, the state came in and decided how to divide it up among the needy. No passing one’s wealth on to the next generation except in a contribution to the world as a whole.
Maybe people would stop hoarding so much wealth, since not only could they not take it with them, they couldn’t leave it with their children either. Their children would start out (or at least continue on) with no more than anyone else.
There’s an obscene and growing divide in this world between the haves and have-nots.
I live in a community where we have both very wealthy and very poor. Huge, palatial mansions, and trailors and apartments where people live who don’t own cars or washing machines.
NOTE: If you live in New York City or Washington, D.C., maybe you can live without a car, but if you live in a small town in Southern California and can’t afford a car, it’s a different matter. Taking the bus anywhere from here will take hours.
Young mothers take their children with them, a stroller in tow and a few children on foot, and walk everywhere. We have few sidewalks and few crosswalks, and a lot of traffic through town from a military base. Every time sidewalks are proposed, people complain that the town would lose its “country” feel. So the low-income mothers continue to fight traffic on foot with those strollers and those children. In some places this is downright dangerous.
I wish, when the next wealthy bugger in town dies, their money could go toward sidewalks and crosswalks for those mothers and children. I don’t think the rich driving their big cars through town even see those young families. I suspect they’re invisible to them. Inconsequential, since they have no monetary wealth.
1.
It’s a very thought-provoking idea, that a person’s wealth belongs to him only and not to his heirs, but to society at large. I wonder how that would change our world if that were true? It would make an interesting story.
Comment by Sarah — July 27, 2006 @ 1:53 pm
2.
I’ll probably be labeled by someone as a communist or socialist, which I’m not. But I think things have gone too far, and something has to give. Less tax loopholes, less legislative pandering to corporate interests. Something! It’s time to stop controlling people’s lives and let them take control.
Comment by Barbara — July 27, 2006 @ 7:44 pm
3.
While it’s a great thought, reality can’t help but interfere. The truly wealthy, as usual, will be able to get around the system. Those who have worked hard all their lives with the thought of never asking or requiring government assistance will have saved and done without things all their lives (like my folks) so that they will remain independent. They also have the frame of mind to provide for their children if they can. Those are the folks who would lose out. My dad, by the way, died two years ago and drove a 1972 Olds Cutlass which is still in running condition.
Comment by susan — July 28, 2006 @ 7:29 am
4.
Although the rates aren’t 100% the Estate Tax was actually intended to prevent wealth from being endlessly accumulated to the detriment of our whole society. It isn’t just a revenue enhancer but based on the philosophy that the few rich should not be allowed to grow endlessly richer at everyone else’s expense. Which latter idea is the prime motivaton of our current leaders. I think our society is approaching the breaking point. Even slaves have to be able to live to continue working for the masters.
If your scheme was in place we sure wouldn’t have the pitiful nitwit we have for president. He’d either be on welfare or more likely dead from drink or drugs. This guy couldn’t get a job as a greeter at WalMart. Can you imagine his job interviews? A man who can’t even form a oherent sentence?
Yeah, there are good reasons to limit what we can pass on and the limi now is more than most people can accumulate, at least the federal tax.
Comment by Eric Mayer — July 28, 2006 @ 8:42 am
5.
Eric, you made me laugh, but it’d be funnier if it wasn’t true, huh? I didn’t realize that was the original intent of estate tax, and I’m quite sure the wealthy don’t want us to realize that—or accept it themselves.
Susan, you’re right, in our current world it’s a Utopian idea. (Likely the money would be squirreled into offshore accounts.) And yes, maybe there should be a certain amount that a middle-income family can pass on, like a house or car or enough to put away for a rainy day, heirlooms that have sentimental value. Of course minors whose parents die need to be taken care of. I also think people need an incentive to work beyond a paycheck to live on.
I believe in free enterprise, but not in corporate capitalism run wild (which seems to allow corruption to pour in). We have to force some constraint on the constant grasping for more and more money in the hands of a few. I believe we have to start thinking differently, and stop letting the wealthy own us. We have to let them know we’re a force to be reckoned with, because right now they just look on the rest of us as either invisible, or as suckers, or as chattel. That’s not right.
Edited 07-29-2006 to add:
I’ve gotten to thinking about people I’ve known who expected to inherit a lot of money, and how they lived their lives as if tomorrow was much more important than today. Living as if there is something to come that will change everything for you can be a kind of no-life, in a way. You live dreaming a dream instead of living. You think “tomorrow, tomorrow,” instead of being present in today. You think of today as of less value and can fritter your youth away. Maybe people are better off thinking that what they have today is all they will ever have, and learning to accept, be content, and do their best within that framework.
Comment by Barbara — July 28, 2006 @ 11:24 am