I realize this is not, strictly speaking, beer news, but given the NBWA’s unrelenting efforts to help their rich members avoid paying taxes, and my diatribe about it two days ago, I wanted to update the story. Today, the Senate voted to “reject a Republican effort to abolish taxes on inherited estates during an election year with control of Congress at stake,” according today’s San Francisco Chronicle. The vote was three short of the votes needed to advance the bill.
Also from the Chronicle article:
“The estate tax is an extremely costly tax for a wealthy few that comes at the expense of every other American born and yet to be born for decades to come,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Under current law this year, the first $2 million of a person’s estate or $4 million of a couple’s, escapes taxation. The remainder can be taxed at rates up to 46 percent.
According to the most recent statistics available from the Internal Revenue Service, 1.17 percent of people who died in 2002 left a taxable estate.
“Repealing the estate tax during this time of fiscal crisis would be incredibly irresponsible and intellectually dishonest,” Sen. George Voinovich (R) of Ohio said.
Unsurprisingly, the NBWA wasted no time expressing their displeasure with the Senate vote. From their press release:
“We are disappointed about today’s vote regarding a permanent solution to the death tax which hurts small family-owned businesses. Make no mistake about it. Those Senators who previously supported death tax repeal and today opposed this effort to proceed to H.R. 8 are standing in the way of a permanent solution. Those Senators that voted “no” on cloture have essentially voted “yes” to increase the death tax to 55 percent in 2011.
“On behalf of America’s beer distributors, we will continue to work with Congress on a permanent solution to the death tax that will allow small business owners to plan for the continuation of their businesses with certainty and without fear of a looming death tax threat that could mean the death of the family business.”
Oh, those poor rich families. They may be family-owned, but small they’re not. But I guess money makes people do and say crazy things. So the spin machine is again in high gear. I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of this issue.
I applaud the NBWA’s efforts. Beer distributors have clearly been hammered by the “death tax”.
Oh. Wait. These “generations” of beer-distributing operations seem to have continued in spite of the vicious, brutal taxation.
Call a spade a spade NWBA. Show us who exactly you are representing. Any examples of “small-businesses” and the effects of the “death tax”?
Keep up the great coverage!
Abolishing the estate tax flies in the face of what America is supposed to be about: Ordinary, hardworking folks who work hard to pull themselves out of poverty and into greatness. Basically, the “New Rich.”
The “Old Rich” way of passing on wealth to their progeny to become spoiled idiots, screw-ups and playboys was considered morally wrong, (until recently). Taxing the “ordinary, hard-working citizens” heavily to make this supposed “death tax” happen for the upper 1.7 percent is just plain WRONG. I’m glad this bill has been shelved, yet again.
So I understand this, if I work hard and become successful I then give half of my money (and it is my money) to the government to throw away on pork. Since the government doesn’t produce wealth (you can’t count printing money) I guess it’s easy to tax and spend.
2 million is not a lot of money when you consider the cost of land in California and the investment into a business. I guess no one should be wealthy, just spread the money. Socialism lives.
Dear gwfrankpsu,
Yup, for the most part. Yes. But it’s not half your money. The way it is now, the first two million is not taxed, it’s only above that amount that is taxed. And obviously you could create a living trust or take other measures to protect some of your estate. And sure the government may throw it away on pork, which mostly goes to huge corporations anyway. That’s annoying to me, too, but it’s not a reason to abolish the estate tax and shift the burden to the 99% with estates below $2 million. I don’t like many of the decisions and policies of my government, but that’s a totally separate issue. I would never argue there shouldn’t be income tax or corporate tax simply because they won’t use the money how I want them to. That’s a fallacious argument.
Two million isn’t a lot, I agree, especially in California — where I live too by the way — and if legislation was introduced from time to time to adjust the amount for inflation you wouldn’t hear a peep of protest out of me. But that’s not been what I’ve been saying is the problem. The problem for me is twofold. First, the estate tax shouldn’t be abolished simply because rich people don’t want to pay the current tax scheme and instead want everybody to share the burden equally while they enjoy the rewards unequally. Take a look at what’s happened to the tax rates since around 1950. The higher tax brackets have come down considerably and corporate taxes are a much smaller percentage of tax revenue today compared with the Fifties. Second, I don’t like how much misinformation about this issue is used to promote it and I notice you’re doing it to.
I never said no one should be wealthy, but when you die you can’t take it with you so what’s really the problem? I want my kids to make their own way in the world, not wait around for me to die so they inherit it and never have to work. If nothing changes between then and now and I actually have two million to pass on to them, I think that’s plenty to get them started (I’m assuming no inflation for this argument).
So if letting the 1.17% of the people with something like half the money in the country not pay the current estate tax is your idea of socialiam, so be it. You and I know that’s not what socialism is, but people are so protective of their money that they’ll do and say anything no matter ridiculous to hang on to it, and I guess you’re proving that point for me.