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Originally Posted by Turner2099
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Yes the economist has your the same biases as you. It hasn’t endorsed a Republican candidate for president in about 30 years. And your quote was from the editorial, not the research piece that I also linked to.
However, you selectively quoted the article. Here’s the whole paragraph.
“Loopholes benefiting the very wealthy should certainly be closed. The biggest problem in the American tax system is at the very top. The resetting of the basis for capital-gains tax upon death allows billionaires who hold on to assets, borrowing against them to fund spending, to avoid the levy entirely. The dodge is outrageous. Yet ending it would yield only a tiny amount of money, probably less than 0.1% of GDP annually. The same goes for raising inheritance tax, a good tax that has never generated much money.”
Of course loopholes should be closed.
Using the strategy above, the billionaire and his estate still pays a 40% tax on all the gifts he makes and what’s in his estate when he dies. Except donations to charity. Who would you rather have compounding capital and allocating money to worthy causes? Bill Gates and Warren Buffet? Or federal politicians? The politicians mostly won’t compound capital and grow the economy, they’ll spend it. And flush a lot of the money down the toilet.
How about allocating the share of taxes attributable to corporations founded by billionaires? That would be in the billions for a number of them. The billionaires pay far more than their fair share. And as the Economist says, the idea you’re going to be able to rob the billionaires to close the deficit and pay for the federal politicians wish lists is a pipe dream.
