In Mr. Obama's budget there is a footnote that would keep the estate (death) tax on estates larger than $3.5 million at the current level which I believe is 45%.
I know, I know....why should I care I certainly don't have an estate that large and probably never will but why are we penalizing a family for having a relative that happened to be wealthy? Where does the 45% come from? So the estate in whole is worth 3.5 million so the family would have to come up with 1.575 million to settle the tax bill that will be levied against the recently deceased persons estate. How do they pay for it? If they had the cash, great...usually this causes the sale of assets. Maybe a family farm, maybe the deceased had lots of stock that could be sold and just maybe it's the family business that must be sold. So the government has forced the hand of the decedents family to sell potentially a business instead of keeping the business in the family as it belongs. Truly tragic.
I'm hearing a lot about the changes to the tax code that Mr. Obama is making simply by inserting it into his budget or by the legislatures simply inserting something in their "stimulus" bills language which the average person will never see that becomes law and dramatically impacts their daily lives.
So instead of making the tax code simpler as was promised time and time again on the campaign trail, instead of no new taxes, instead of change we can believe in.
Is this what we all had in mind?
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