April 26, 2006

Stealth campaign of super-wealthy to repeal U.S. federal estate tax revealed. Meanwhile, President Bush "wants to eliminate what he likes to call the 'death tax'" at the same time as "he wants to end Social Security's lump sum death benefit -- a $255 check that the families of many of the nation's poorest use to help pay for their funerals." (Second link from Business Week, of all places.)

". . . 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion. . . . "These families have sought to keep their activities anonymous by using associations to represent them and by forming a massive coalition of business and trade associations dedicated to pushing for estate tax repeal. The report details the groups they have hidden behind – the trade associations they have used, the lobbyists they have hired, and the anti-estate tax political action committees, 527s and organizations to which they have donated heavily. "In a massive public relations campaign, the families have also misled the country by giving the mistaken impression that the estate tax affects most Americans. In particular, they have used small businesses and family farms as poster children for repeal, saying that the estate tax destroys both of these groups. But just more than one-fourth of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006. And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable when asked by The New York Times to cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability."

posted by HawthorneWingo 17 years ago
  • ...using associations to represent them and by forming a massive coalition of business and trade associations... Wouldn't they spend as much on lobbying to repeal the estate tax as they'd gain?
  • Small price to pay for the increased freedom of all Americans.
  • There wouldn't be much point paying for all that lobbying if the rewards didn't exceed the costs involved...
  • You never know what the Farm Bureau's up to next.
  • Soylent Green. I dream of a world where rich and poor alike nestle comfortably side-by-side on shelves, in handy snack-sized cans.
  • The Attorney General of Arkansas recently ruled that the counties could order cremation, at the undertakers' expenses, of all unidentified paupers, just so long as care was taken to assure that no rich folks' corpses were inadvertantly desecrated as well. http://www.katv.com/news/stories/0406/320283.html (And I see that KATV has censored some comment by one "Ms Informed" about all poor people going to the place of eternal cremation anyway!)
  • As far as I'm aware, the estate tax doesn't even come into play until the estate is worth more than a million dollars. My maternal grandparents were very comfortable -- they took yearly (at least) vacations, wore nice clothes, drove new cars, etc., and their estate was nowhere near worth a million. On preview, according to randomaction's link, the tax doesn't come into play until 1.5 million dollars, which even fewer people have.
  • Nothing like 98% of the nation's wealth in the hands of 4% of the people. God forbid they shouldn't squeeze every damn penny. FuckBush!
  • Don't kill off the Estate Tax an article from that other left-wing magazine: Fortune. :-)
  • Government by the rich, for the rich and richer is pretty much standard practice everywhere.
  • ...er, except that it was a government that implemented those estate taxes in the first place.
  • Wouldn't they spend as much on lobbying to repeal the estate tax as they'd gain? Nope, nowhere near as much. One of the most startling things learned during this incredibly corrupt GOP domination of US government is exactly how much can be bought for so little. The insurance industry (one of the largest lobbying groups), for example, was able to purchase $20 billion in payoffs, for the token sum of $24 million. And that's not counting all the other little things that $24 million bought. The sums involved in the corporate give-aways are so mindbogglingly huge that it makes buying half the political landscape pale by comparison.
  • I'll take California for $800, Alex.
  • I hope for their sake that they spend some of that money on guns and bunkers. Nothing like a few beheadings to restore some compassion for their fellow man.
  • Oops, did I say that? Sorry, I'll go back to being a contented member of the serf class.