I agree that your proposal would cause most/all of the big money to flee the country. If that was your intention, then why didn’t you say so from the start instead of repeatedly talking about the need for revenue that your proposal wouldn’t generate?

Here’s a deal for you — I’ll say what I mean (thus you can trust that I don’t have a soft spot in my heart for plutocrats). You say what you mean (and don’t change horses midstream). Will make for a much more civilized conversation, ESPECIALLY if you can put aside the name calling.

TFF, believe it or not, has one good point here – it’s going to possibly be impossible to prevent the plutocrats and their SPAWN from liquidating the old guard’s assets, moving the cash out of the country and themselves along with it; think – Mark Rich. That’s not optimal – the Feds need the money – but it is OK.

Raising revenue it only part of the objective. The more important part is preventing the emergence of an hereditary aristocracy in the US. Even if they manage to flee with their cash, at least they are gone – and the malignant influence they have on American political and social life will be gone too. Sometimes you have to settle for half-a-loaf, said the “complete idiot”.

(1) Give the permitted amount to your heirs and patriotically hand over the remainder to the US Government.

(2) Set up a charitable trust. Appoint your heirs as trustees for the fund and pay them a 2% “asset management fee” plus expenses. (On a $100M estate that would come to $2M annually.)

(3) Buy a life insurance policy that names your heirs as owners/beneficiaries. (Pay for the policy through a pet corporation to dodge direct ownership of the policy.)

…and finally…
(4) Buy citizenship in some foreign country without an estate tax. Renounce your US citizenship. Problem solved.

You can definitely raise more money by restricting our inheritance laws and raising the tax rates, however if you go too far in that direction (a 100% tax rate is certainly too far) then the wealthiest will simply take advantage of #4. You end up taxing the MODERATELY wealthy, who don’t have enough to be worth inventing a tax dodge, while the TRUE PLUTOCRATS end up paying nothing.

If MrRFox comes up with a plausible way to address that final tax dodge, then I’ll definitely listen. Instead he spouts emotional rhetoric and assumes that anybody who believes he hasn’t thought this through carefully must be “soft on plutocrats”.

The true plutocrats have greater loyalty to their wealth than to any country.

Excerpting:
“Now, it turns out that the optimal tax rate for growth is easy to calculate. The data cooperates very nicely. There is a relationship, an easy to estimate curve which I’ve modestly called the “Kimel curve.” And the high point in the Kimel curve is somewhere around 65%.”

Works for me… You’ll collect MUCH more estate tax at 50% or 65% than you will at 99% or 100%. And you’ve got a better chance of getting it passed, too!

If MrRFox weren’t a complete idiot, he’d get behind a proposal like that.

You’ve repeatedly proposed easing the exemption (changing from $1M to an exemption of $1M PER DIRECT DESCENDENT) while pretending that you will somehow make up for the difference by confiscating the rest.

Simple fact — billionaires are smarter than you are. They realize that they have better options than to pay a confiscatory tax. Maybe they offshore their money somehow to remove it from their estate? Maybe they give it all to charity? But even if they blindly walked into your 100% tax rate, your expanded exemptions would mean that your collections would end up much less than you anticipate.

So what now? Will you continue to ignore my objections and pretend that I “pity the plutocrats”? Or will you actually ADDRESS my criticisms? Will you suggest ways that the existing loopholes might be closed? Will you tell me why EVERY DIRECT DESCENDENT needs to inherit $1M tax free?

I’ve spoken out in favor of a system with NO loopholes, no exemptions, and a high enough tax rate to actually collect some real money. What’s wrong? Is that too tough for you?

Estate tax in the US has never been the revenue generator that it could be. At all times exemptions and graduated rates have produced outcomes less than what would be expected in a rigorous tax regime. For example, in the 30′s the top rate was like 70%+, but only applied on estates then valued at over $50Mil – those are 1930′s dollars.

We do know that estates are currently running at an annual gross asset value approaching $250Bil per year, and climbing. That’s the pot of wealth held by the dead that should be intercepted rather than allowing any substantial part of it to become the unearned wealth of donees.

The intergenerational transfer of wealth within family lines has been a primal ritual of human life as far back as history goes. Interrupting that will doubtless be resisted from many quarters – yours, for example. So what? We need the money – now! – and we need to reverse the trend of an hereditary aristocracy developing in the country – whether you two like it or not.

http://www.angrybearblog.com/2011/10/laf fer-curve-and-kimel-curve.html

Contra, see also http://www.nber.org/chapters/c12638.pdf for some math and modeling that shows the ‘proper’ hump-shaped Laffer curve.

One way or another, such a tax would be dodged. People will go to great lengths to avoid confiscation of their assets.

Didn’t we have a 70% tax bracket under Jimmy Carter or something ridiculous like that? Yet the Reagan tax reform was in part driven by public outrage that so many of the wealthy were paying **NOTHING**.

Please read up on the Laffer curve before you suggest ideas that superficially sound nice but are ultimately destructive. We have enough of those floated by politicians already!

UK GDP figures are widely expected to be revised upwards and the Guardian is heavily incentivised to push the two lies that a) there is any serious form of “austerity” in the UK and b) it is responsible for the UK’s woes.

Buffet is a fan of taxes for other rich people, not on the way he makes money.

St. Warren (Buffet) of Omaha has seen the light, asking now that the rich pay more in tax. Some time back he became estranged from his adopted grandaughter after she had the temerity to appear in a film titled “The One Percent”. Wonder if he’s forgiven her – or she him?

Can check it out here – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-pr ess/2006/09/07/warren-buffett-has-no-gra _e_28880.html

OBTW: Nicole and her heirs and heiresses pals are an even better advertisement for a 99% estate tax than Paris Hilton.