From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Fri Oct 05 2001 - 10:56:23 MDT
Charlie Stross wrote:
> Secondly, if that's the case, where in hell did your current government get
> the idea of cutting inheritance tax -- which massively, disproportionately,
> benefits the ultra-rich -- from? -- Charlie
When making comments such as this one, keep in mind the basic
assumptions behind it. The reason inheritance taxes were cut is
that that weath had already been taxed. An inheritance tax is
double taxation. The basic assumption under an inheritance
tax is that wealth all really belongs to the government but it allows
people to use some of it. My assumption is that all wealth belongs
to the people but we let the government use some of it. Under that
assumption, all inheritance tax makes no sense and should be illegal.
We heard the former assumption in many comments by the
loser of the recent US presidential election when he kept referring
to the proposed Bush tax cuts as "spending on the rich." But
that carries the assumption that the then-current tax structure
made collected wealth the rightful property of the government.
So collecting less tax was equivalent to spending on the rich.
We have already beaten this topic to death last fall, but do
examine the fundamental assumptions behind ones comments.
spike
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