Trusts, perhaps. A friend told me he'd spent quite a bit to organize
his holdings so that they'd flow mostly tax-free to his kids. I don't
know any of the details.
A quick google brought up this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/bu.../09estate.html "Elaborate
estate plans with sophisticated trusts are often made many years
before death to reduce estate taxes owed by the richest."
As far as I understand this, setting up trusts may be useful for the
benefit of the heirs, but does not yield tax benefits that are
commensurate with the efforts to set them up. (unless outright
illegalities are committed that are easy to prove)
That's just plain wrong. The tax savings from setting up trusts to avoid
estate taxes are well worth the time and money you spend to set them up.
Unless you don't consider spending a matter of thousands to save
millions to be worth the effort.
People with modest assets (a few mils) can get quite a bit of tax
benefits by giving kids and grandkids annual gifts, cash etc, buying
stuff for them like washing machines and TVs and whatnot (which,
strictly speaking, should be reported too, but can be hidden up to
some amount).
You don't get the tax benefits from tax write offs from giving gifts to
kids and grandchildren. That amounts to peanuts. You save the money by
protecting your estate from paying estate taxes. Which are big.
For people with a lot of money (tens of millions), those things do not
amount to much, and it is easier to simply pay the ****ing tax than to
set up weird trusts.
Totally untrue. If someone with a ten million dollar estate has no
estate planning they lose 5.5 million of the value of the estate right
off the top. By estate planning you can cut that by millions. So I would
say it's far easier to keep a few million by estate planning than by
giving it to the government any day.
Estate tax is totally fair, though the exact amount could be debated.
55% seems excessive. 35 to 45% seems perfect to me.
Here's the problem with estates. First off, most people have none and so
they don't leave jack **** to their kids. Then you have the estates
worth a few million, say from between two and twenty-five million. That
is where most estates fall, in that category. Then you have the really
rich who are worth hundreds of millions and billions. For them the 55%
seems fair but it could be even higher than that for someone with an
estate like Steinbrenner, which is like 500 million. If you took 75%
there would still be 125 million to give to people who didn't earn a
cent of it. If he had a dozen heirs they would all still get 12.5
million and double that if there was only 6. I don't know about you but
I wouldn't bitch about getting that kind of money for nothing. That sets
up just about the whole family to be multimillionaires for life. Most
Americans don't think that is fair giving some people so much to start
life with.
Then you have the problem of the people with the little estates worth
2-25 million. You take half of them in taxes and you don't have much to
divide after that. So the solution is that the small estates of say 1-10
million you don't tax at all and then from there you progressively tax
higher and higher until you are taking 90% from the mega wealthy.
I would love nothing better than to have a large estate, leave part of
it to my kids, and return a bit to the society to which I owe so much.
Hey, we all want a large estate. Unfortunately, it's like going to
Vegas. Only a lucky few get what they hoped for. What would be nice is
for most people to be able to make enough to leave a nice bonus for
their kids to make their lives better. Leaving them with mega millions
usually isn't good for anyone. But since something like 98% of Americans
don't leave any estate worth mentioning we don't really have to worry
about it, do we? But when so many have no estate at all why do some
people call it a "death tax"? when it only applies to the 2% with lots
of money? Could it be they are just using that term for an ulterior
motive? Since it's always republicans calling it this you know it's a
con and nothing else.
Hawke