Do you support an inheritance tax?

Right. As long as he doesn't "earn" it he will not get punished by taxation. Don't work and get it tax free … do work and get punished. And people wonder why the youth don't want to work for their money. People like you make it abundantly clear that work is for suckers.

 

The conveyance of a decedent's wealth to a an heir is a taxable event. Who cares if the conveyance is a bequest, compensation, or some other conveyance?

Taxation has a couple of fundamental rationales: 1. reallocates social assets for our collective purposes and 2. to kill fledgling aristocracies.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Taxes are desirable to a civil society as well as scions that work for a living.

 

Dude, the rich get rich on the back of the laborers that create the value / wealth.

Why do right wingers have such a hard time seeing the average laborer justly compensated for creating the Moneyed Elite's wealth?

See? The world needs ditch diggers too and many workers never rise above that level. They perform valuable services and then Julius the Rich Owner dives in and takes a lion's share of the profits while kicking back nothing to the laborers that made the wealth in the first place.

Don't matter how much effort millions of americans put in to work....they will never rise above ditch digger status. While Julius the Rich gamer knows how to play the system reap the benefits created by the underclass.

Oh that's right, the free market determines wages and the rich people just work harder. ahahahahaha

 

Absent state-sanctioned privileges and immunities, such unjust enrichment would be far more difficult and unlikely.

 

Taxes are designed to kill fledgling aristocracies? Is that why the aristocracy have always been the ones responsible for designing and implementing taxes?

 

I think the problem is that there is not an agreement of terms, because even under a geoist system, individuals are entitled to some measure of privacy and exclusivity, even if they don't technically own the land they are on, much in the same way individuals are entitled to some measure of privacy and exclusivity when it comes to the air they breath, even if they don't technically own the air. In other words, although I agree that there is no technical ownership of the land, there is still an individual right to use and occupy the land, and that implies some standard of privacy.

 

Well, I'll just have to fundamentally disagree with you.

Your are right, the world does need ditch diggers but it also needs wealthy investors to pay for the shovels and the land the ditch is on, without the investors financial risk, there will be no ditch.

The vast majority of laborers get paid what they are worth, there is always someone satisfied with that pay that is willing to do the work.
Are some taken advantage of, of course, do some ditch diggers take advantage of their employers, of course, but hey life's not perfect or is it fair.

There's a lot of things laborers (perhaps yourself) don't understand, the wealthy take risks with their investment, you may not believe that because you've probably never taken a huge financial risk. Another thing you don't understand is that many risks fail and fail big, but you don't hear about that part either, where are all the ditch diggers when that happens?

Do you ever find many people complaining about hollywood actors getting paid absurd amounts of money for standing in front of a camera or professional athletes getting multimillion dollar contracts simply for playing a sport you and I loved as a kid?

Should I complain and demand the government let me be in movies or insist that I get paid millions of dollars and play for the NY Yankees?

I don't complain, because I know life is not fair for everyone.
And even though I'm not considered wealthy, I'm comfortable with where I'm at and that's more than likely why I don't complain.

But if anyone has a right to in my opinion, it's small business owners like myself who make a fraction of the money the real wealthy make but are subjected to the same damn regulations and tax rates!

Hopefully things will get better for you and you can focus on what makes you comfortable.

 

Personally, I would love there to not be one as I would benefit personally from there not being one.

But at an impersonal level, the inheritance tax assuming it's properly implemented (which it's not) would be a long term boon for the economy, benefiting everyone, including the trust babies themselves.

Right now though, the tax is only really effective against the "sorta, but not really wealthy" who don't have the resources to get around the law.

 

I agree. I think most people see the geoist system and jump to the conclusion that it will remove every opportunity of them ever having a place of their own. After all, taxes usually make things more expensive. Of course, the reality is the diametric opposite, as land value taxes (with a personal exemption or equivalent citizens dividend) actually guarantees that everyone will have a piece of land exclusively of their own. Even when starting a business, land taxes could conceivably cut the initial costs in half, or even much more (depending on what the business is, of course). People know that farmers require lots of land, so they think that land value taxes will put farmers out of business and make food prices skyrocket … but again, that is the diametric opposite of what actually happens. Land value taxation cannot put farmers out of business, that is impossible, and actually makes farming more profitable.

The problem is, experience with other taxes has taught people that taxes make life harder. Therefore, the thought that a different type of tax, especially a tax on land, could guarantee them some free land, which they could choose from in the market of available land, is simply inconceivable to them. A tax that makes it easier to start a business, well that goes against everything they currently know about taxation, so the very though of it is dismissed without further investigation. Land value taxation has NEGATIVE dead-weight losses … no other form of taxation can even come close to claiming that.

 

But doesn't a land value tax necessitate the existence of some nominal state entity? Wouldn't it be more efficient to just eliminate the state and have direct democracy or some variation thereof?

 

If a person wishes to participate in the economy, they must have some money no matter if they earn it, are gifted it, or realize capital gains...IMO money is money. Most people are going to earn their money because they don't invest, don't own businesses, don't have wealthy friends gifting them money. Again, money is money and each individual will have a different potential how they acquire money. I just think it's political BS when a person leaves $140 million it is taxed at death while the same person could have given it away $14,000 at a time and NO taxes would have been paid. I'm against inheritance taxation...

 

I don't see how a direct democracy could guarantee equal rights to what nature provided. Government (or the state as you call it) confined to only collecting land rent does not scare me in the slightest. The land value tax actually aligns the politicians greed with the publics best interests. The politicians greed can only be served by him making the community a more desirable place to live.

I say politician, but in a geoist society the politician would more resemble a CEO of large business enterprise. A CEO whose job is to maximize the efficiency and desirability of the land under his jurisdiction. I think Frank Chodorov sums it up nicely in this quote:

"It is obvious that if rent were socialized - that is, publicly collected and used for social purposes - the power of the State would decline, and eventually disappear. The governing body could not hide its inefficiency or corruption behind tax levies. Rent would be the barometer of government's value to the citizenry, and the readings would be quite visible. The producers would be buying social services just as they buy private services or goods. The price would be rent. Government would come into the market. […] The socialization of rent would destroy taxes. The State (as we know it) would disappear; and such government as we would have would be always subject to the economic instrument of rent." --Frank Chodorov