On 2010-07-30, Lloyd E. Sponenburgh lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:
Ignoramus18915 fired this volley in
:

Estate tax is an attempt to balance the pluses with minuses. Some
amout being taxed, still keeps people interested in becoming wealthy,
but curtails to some extent this resource misallocation.

Ig, the estate tax might have some small effect like that, but that's
hardly its purpose. I would love it if that were actually the case, but
that's a utopian's view.

The real reason for the tax is simply that the government saw a nice, fat
pot to skim from, and decided to take a piece. They new darned well if
they took it from the average working stiff who's widow needs the whole
estate just to buy groceries, they'd have a rebellion.

There were no reasons of societal altruism in establishing the estate
tax. It's just another pork pot. Would that it were as you say.

Lloyd, you may be right about the motivations. You may be more of a
realist than I am. It is a great way to grab some money from the
rich, I agree.

But, I think, the question is, is the effect of that positive or
negative? And I think that at some reasonable level of taxation, it is
positive. Keeps the balance a little bit better.

If the level was too high, it would be negative.

i