Tax: Estate
The estate tax is levied upon the "taxable estate" of a fantastically wealthy deceased person to any recipient (with certain allowances made for federally-recognized spouses and charitable organizations). The vast majority of people are unaffected by the estate tax. As of 2011, $5 million can be transferred from the taxable estate of a deceased individual without becoming eligible for the estate tax.
Cry Wolf Quotes
[Estates] are valuable only for what they can produce. If seized by the government they can produce nothing, and if such seizures increase in amount beyond a reasonable limit they must prove not only valueless in themselves but must destroy the sources of production which otherwise would continue to finance the government and provide for the people.
They increased inheritances to the point where cash must be hoarded to pay the tax collector in case of death.
These taxes are a levy upon capital. There is no requirement in our law, as there is in the English law, that the proceeds from estate taxes shall go into capital improvements of the Government. In other words, capital is being destroyed for current operating expenses and the cumulative effect of such destruction cannot fail to be harmful to the country.
It is not taxation. It is communism in disguise which deceives most of those who voted for these provisions.
Evidence
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Estate Tax Basics
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains the reality of the much-mythologized estate tax.
Backgrounders & Briefs
Estate Tax Policy Brief
By Joseph J. Thorndike
Since at least the 1920s, estate tax opponents had been trotting out the same litany of warnings and complaints about the Estate Tax.
