| The goal of this essay is to show how inheritance can be an enslavement of both the recipient and his peers. There is a way to give all of one's wealth to one's children. The author is not against helping others, especially one's own blood. However, help that does not help the helpless to help themselves is not help. The author in for capitalism in all of its manifestations but against decapitalism in all of its infestations. Current inheritance is decapitalism, for it decapitates the human spirit for which humanity suffers. |
Estate Taxes:
Emancipation or
Enslavement
| If a person earns a million dollars in a lifetime and I give you this
person as a slave, then I have given you a million dollars. Likewise, if
I give you a million dollars then I have given you a slave, for with money
you buy a lifetime of services and goods. In either case, I have not
only made someone(s) a slave unto you but I have made you a slavemaster.
If you give someone a gift of money, or its equivalent, you are giving freedom from work while enslaving someone else. It is a zero-sum world. You can't give one person freedom from work without enslaving another to work enough for two people. You can't make someone rich for doing nothing without generating the worst kind of inflation: slavery. When inflation is understood as a cheapening of time, slavery is the worst form of inflation, beating out unemployment. Odd how the Federal Reserve uses unemployment as a tool to fight inflation. Consider the following table ($13.87) is the average hourly wage in the year 2001. Accepting that a gift is tax-free, a gift dollar is worth at least 20% more than an earned dollar. Thus, a gift lifehour is really 1.2 lifehours of freedom or enslavement.
For the average person, inheritance is a primary cause of
Subsequent downstream problems are parents with no time to be parents, schools unable to afford teachers and nursing homes ad infinitum. Inheritance is ground zero for the money dictators who buy the habitual politicians who vote and vote the inflationary enslavement of the average person. Timistically, there is no difference beween
Rather than end estate taxes, a new Constitutional Amendment is needed to end all forms of enslavement. Ironically, the track record of individuals inheriting a life of freedom is a wasted life, e.g., the poor little rich girls. Timistically, the previous paragraphs lend themselves to creating civil strife on par with the 1860's struggle over the more obvious form of slavery. While this author has developed a program of compensated emancipation to free the voter and citizen from the habitual politician, no such simple system exists for freeing the average person from the attitude "It's my money. I'll do whatever I want with it." It's not money. It's time. Throughout history, the children of enslavers benefit from inheredited chains, whips and money. With the advance of civilization, laws have arisen to proscribe the misuse of one's time to steal another's time Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not steal. Thou shall not yell "fire" in a crowded theater. See Timistic Morality. Now, as a civilized people wanting a higher level of civility, we need to recognize how the gift of money is a form of stealing others' time. The gift of money generates a society in which a growing number of people are forced to work longer hours to meet the needs of life because are also working to provide the needs of those who don't need to work, the controllers--see Work and Prostitution. It is ageold wisdom that unearned money is not spent wisely. The recipient of the gift more often than not loses some or all of their humanity. Welfare, whether public or private, debases the humanity of the individual. Society benefits from the parent who tells the money hungry child to get a job instead of giving an allowance. The individual becomes a problem-solver for himself, his parents and his society. The individual enjoys the greater level of freedom and happiness that comes with being problem-freer. Ask the average lottery winner whether the winnings were matched with a proportional rise in happiness.
History is full of parents buying their children a life free of work only
to find the child plagued with problems the parents never imagined. To wit,
On the highest level of parenting--the U.S. Constitution--the founding fathers envisioned a Bill of Rights without ever mentioning a bill of responsibility. Why? The children of the Colonies had come here to have rights denied in the mother country and fatherland. They could not imagine someone not being responsible if given the rights of freedom. The U.S. Constitution is an instrument of enlightened self-interest with each Amendment refining It to a new level of civility. The foundation and shaper of the Constitution is the Declaration of Independence: All men care created equal in their right to the pursuit of happiness. Estates enslave people so as to deny or limit this inalienable right. Does society have a right to tell you can't spend or give your money the way you want? Society has been doing it when the gift is realized to be harmful to society. You can't buy a person and give said person to another. You can't buy a gun and give it to a child. Inheritances are harmful to the individual and society. Is it not sad when one hears a kid say they don't have to work because their parents are going to take care of them. Parents who leave their children an inheritance reduces the relative human worth of the offspring. Sad for the kid. Sad for humanity. Many parents say they don't want their kids to suffer the same problems as the parents. In protecting the children they get their wish. The kids have more problems. Why? The kids don't experience problems in that window of opportunity where the work ethic is learned. This is the sign of an existential fool. Such parents are absentee-landlords thinking a big inheritance will make up for the many parental "no shows." Gifts of money are gifts of freedom and enslavement. If they were only gifts of freedom, then there would be no enslavement. That's the challenge. How to ensure that gifts in time or money are gifts of liberation rather than enslavement. Consider both the nature of good parenting and the following: Help that does not help the helpless to help themselves is not help.
and
Society has increasingly reviewed parenting to discern when a parent is failing at the above. As the reader knows, society has not been a good substitute parent. Society helps with financial payments when a parent cannot meet the financial needs, but fails when the payments become an inducement to have more children. Society fails when politicians pass saltwater policies that are wealthfare, for these laws create inflationary suffering for majority. So, where's the middle ground between good parenting and bad parenting? The key is whether the gift of time helps or does not help. Does the gift motivate the person to become a better problem-solver for self, family and community. If a parent truly has the welfare of the child in their heart, they know the giving of quality time is more valuable than an unlimited bank account. How many parents have been murdered because the children wanted the money sooner? One can and should rejoice in the achievement of the hard scrabble couple who raise a flock of children that become doctors, engineers, teachers, and businessmen. Did they throw money at the problem of raising children? Or, was it love? As a good parent buys needed food, shelter and clothing, so should a parent be able to catalyze a productive child's problem-solving for the child, its family and its community. This is what good parents do when they sacrifice to fund their children's higher education. Good parents don't support tax credits that enslave the lower class to lower or lesser education, e.g., separate but equal or tax vouchers/credits. More than one parent out of tough love has withdrawn college support when the child evidence a lack of maturity to handle the problems of college. Good government provide GI Bills. Great governments (Finland) provide cheap higher education for all people. More than one parent has withdrawn inheritance when they realize the offspring will squander the inheritance in a self-destructive manner. What should be the law of the land? And, how can this law allow the children to inherit the family business or family farm without onerous taxes. (The irony here is how all the pro-family farm laws have fostered the destruction of the family farm as the agricorps used the laws to force the family farm into subsistence existence before liquidation.) For gift giving, the rule is simple: A person can receive a gift equal to half of their income up to an amount equal to the average American income. Published accounts reveal that this attitude has already been discovered by some parents: Trusts based on Distrusts For family farms and businesses: Let the child buy the farm long before the parent dies so the parent and child continue to work together. If you can't trust your child, then you have failed at parenting, problably putting more time into the accumulation of money rather than the accumulation of love. As the parent and child grow the business, both profit along with the community. Red Herring: Double Taxation and Death Taxes Are estate taxes double taxation? Not anymore than property taxes are double taxation.
As with your home property taxes, if you don't pay your life properties taxes it is only a matter of time before your heirs have a worthless rundown property that is not safe. Critics who claim the need for simplified taxes are hypocrites when they proclaim that death taxes are double taxation. The reasoning goes that one paid income tax on the money and now must be taxed again when doing with the money as one pleases. Double taxation is a normal part of life. When you give your money to someone for something that pleases you--food, clothing, and entertainment--you pay a tax. Why aren't the death tax opponents protesting this double taxation? Because 100% of the population pay this tax while only 0.1% of population pay estate taxes. This hypocrisy is another example of intellectual dishonesty in the community of economists. In other words, the death tax axers don' t use the same logic when the tax is coming out of others' pockets which benefits the death tax asses. With a totally simple system of taxation, every beneficial transaction bears its fair share of the economic stability. Taxing the transfer of wealth from a dead person to the living is merely another transaction that should be taxed. Not only should it be taxed, but both giver and recipient should be happy to pay the tax. Why? Because the large sum recipient has more to lose from economic instability than the poor. Why is it that the wealthy hire armored cars to transport and protect wealth but bulk at paying their fair share of taxes to transport and protect their wealth by arming the economy with sufficient funds? Why? It's cheaper to buy a politician than it is to buy a petty thug. Amazingly throughout history, when people get wealthier than they ever believed possible, they immediately start buying politicians to avoid paying taxes, e.g., oil and internet. With the concentration of wealth through politically sponsored wealth transfer, the economy and society crashes. Who has the most to lose and does? The wealthiest. Since the bulk of wealth in America is now a matter of buying a habitual politician to get an unearned return of 2500 to 5000 dollars for each campaign dollar--see Wealth Transfer, the claim of any taxation is not true. If the thief has to give back 25% of his theft, is that a 25% tax? If estate taxes are terminated, the proper term will be double-thievery to describe the stealing both before and after the grave. The so-called death tax is really a theft adjustment fee. The Bush "No Death Tax" law is the death of the American middle class. The Rich Pubes, Bush et al. Plan for Reversing the 13th Amendment You'd think by the way the Rich Pubes talk about estate taxes that every American leaves a taxable estate: As is, only 0.1% of deaths incur estate taxes. Ironically, that was about the same percentage of plantation masters who died each year leaving an estate of slaves. How many people are aware that the political promise of ending the estate tax has curtailed many wealthy peoples' interest in setting up foundations to help the less fortunate. So as to leave your child a few thousand dollars, a major source of college funding will disappear. (Most foundations are set up to give children a wealthy lifestyle--trust directors--without the parent paying any inheritance tax--see foundation advertisement. Foundations should face sunset retirement. Furthermore, foundations should reflect the interest of the taxpayers who are making up the missing taxes--see foundation brain bee. Why do most Americans condemn their children to serve the rich? Smoke and Mirrors. Political promises. A failure to invest a little time each week watching the politicians: All play and no politics make Jack and Jill poor taxpayers with no pension--see poster. The primary reason for people condemning their children to political promise is the lack of a timistic analysis of life. People fail to appreciate that the only wealth of life is time itself. Hopefully, the timistic vision of humanity for the third millennium will enlighten a growing awareness of what life is and how to maximize the one life we have. To see the specific rates of enslavement from repealing the estate tax, consider the below plantation benefits for George III and his cabinet: Remember, only 0.1% of Americans have estate taxes each year, basically the same number of plantation owners who died in 1860. Historically, sadness pervades the heart when one realize the party of Lincoln and of emanicipation is now the biggest party to enslaving humanity on a generational and daily basis. Super Smoke and Mirrors If you consider the amount of political hot air givent to the repealing the estate tax, you would think it was a sales or gas tax that affected every American. Only 0.1% of dead Americans pay an estate tax, that is, 1 out 1000. Why do the other 999 Americans want to pay more taxes to make up the difference? Why do 999 Americans out of 1000 want to end the major reason for charitable contributions by the rich: Tax avoidance. This is funny: 99.9% of the population have bought the politicians' soundbytes of death taxes and double taxation when the estate tax does not tax 999 out 1000 Americans. The elimination of the estate tax would increase the taxes on 999 out 1000 Americans. Is the sky really falling? Who's the Chicken Little yelling "boogie man?" This is funny. The New Massa's: Compassionate Conservatives The following is a chart of what masters of the Bush administrations can expect to will their kids by eliminating the estate tax. One has to wonder whether Bush is passing laws for America or for himself? What kind of compassion do the conservatives have when their actions benefit the 0.1% of Americans who die each year? It is reminescent of those "old times that not forgotten." The compassion echos too closely the most conservative compassion in American history, the paternalistic compassion of the plantation massa's who wanted to conserve that peculiary institution. Almost without exception, the below list consists of affluence peddlers: People who play the revolving door of politics to leverage private business contacts into big government subsidies, contracts, or taxes Compassionate Conservatives: Plantation Masters and Field Whips
The real problem is not double taxation with death but double enslavement. Consider how the source of the Bush Cabinet's wealth has not been wealth creation but wealth transfer. The bulk of the Bush Cabinet wealth has had the coflationary impact of enslaving the actual wealth creators to a lower standard of living. Double taxation? No, double enslavement. In championing the end of estate taxes which will enslave the next generation, George III has repudiated the Abolitionist origin of the Republican Party who organized it to end slavery. The Republican Party of the Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, is not the Republican Party of George Bush, the Great Empty. In summary, if you find that you are working harder and harder with more and more stress and less and less hope, you are a victim of inflationary suffering. Your life is being cheapened more with each paycheck. If you support an end to estate taxes so as to allow others to buy your time with your tax dollars, well, gee, guess who is the ultimate victimizer of you?
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