Talk:Estate tax in the United States

message: This article badly needs to be updated.173.16.252.154 (talk) 14:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Serious need of updating

message: If I understand this correctly there is as of 2009 a credit of $3.5 million, which in effect would mean that almost nobody in the US has to pay estate tax. This seems to be a key point that should be highlighted upfront (if I have misunderstood this perhaps the section of the credit could be clarified). 
Tor
the tax is coming back
Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the applicable exclusion will increase to $3,500,000 in 2009, the estate tax is repealed in 2010, but then the act "sunsets" in 2011 and the estate tax reappears with an applicable exclusion amount of only $1,000,000 
(unless Congress acts before then. (with the current administrtion this is NOT happening))
The article needs to be factual and the discussion as to pro con of the tax should be removed.
Sort of repeating the first paragraph ( 2011 exclusion is 5 million).
If a estate is worth less than $5 million, the estate tax is zero if the person dies in 2011. It is frustrating reading all this (and pretty much any other article on US estate tax) when for most (sorry, I do not care to provide a reference)of us estate tax is zero.
You can keep all the details, but please bring this up front.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.167.2.206 (talk) 12:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Highlighting key points 

message: --------------------------
Would it be worth having the article distinguish between a true Inheritance Tax in which the capital bequeathed is taxed on the beneficicary and an Estate Tax in which the tax is assessed on the estate of the deceased?
Does any country operate a true Inheritance Tax in this sense, or are the technical difficulties such that all so-called Inheritance Taxes are really Estate Taxes serving as proxy Inheritance Taxes?
- Alan Peakall
There are, I believe, a few states in the US that do have an "inheritance tax" as syuch. However, the federal government and most states use an Estate Tax as you have described it. Ellsworth 16:10, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This article needs to be distinguished from Estate Taxes because they are NOT the same thing at all.  On the Federal level the U.S. has an estate tax, while many states have had and still have an inheritance tax.  Also, for its applicability to the broader spectrum of other countries, this distinction should be made as well.  Franklin Roosevelt wanted to install an inheritance tax on top of the Federal Estate Tax (http://www.treasury.gov/education/faq/taxes/historyrooseveltmessage.shtml)
One tax values the remaining estate, the other tax values the inheritance.  One taxes the "giver" or bequether of the money, the other taxes the recipient.  If this article is intended to be broad enough for global or world use, it needs to be broadened to allow for multi-cultural representation of taxation.  Regards, Steve Stevenmitchell 14:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Inheritance vs. estate

message: I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant and had a tough time following this article. Can I suggest changing the formatting to conform to Wikipedia's guidelines for technical terms and definitions? Currently, many technical terms are put in "quotations" instead of being bold or italic. While the guide doesn't explicitly prohibit the use of quotation marks, font weight and obliqueness do a lot more to emphasize technical terms.
RCanine 00:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As with so many wikipedia articles, this one now suffers from over elaboration of nuance and trivia. It used to be much more succinct and direct, but wikipedia's format unfortunately never allows for an article to be 'done'. Encyclopedia articles are traditionally summaries, not endlessly changing exhaustive diatribes on minutia. Fallout11 11:24, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Style

message: This tax was called, in common parlance, "the death tax" many, many decades before Frank Luntz was even alive.  Following up that inaccuracy with the viewpoint of some "progressive" merely underscores the leftist tone of this article.  Let me be clear: This article should be ideologically neutral, not biased toward the Left (as it now is) or toward the Right.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.44.144.184 (talk) 13:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The Part Slamming a "Republican Pollster" is Wrong and Out of Place

message: I made a correction in the US part of the article to an edit about life insurance. Life insurance can be included as part of the estate for US estate tax purposes. See 26 U.S. Code 2042.
:Life insurance payable to the executor, presumably as compensation for serving as executor is taxable.  
:Life insurances paid to beneficiaries generally are NOT taxable unless the deceased had significant reversionary interest, or control over the insurance proceeds.    
:I would guess that most policies are written to have specific beneficiaries rather than "payable to the estate of" due to the taxability of policies payable to the estate.  User:Unfocused 05:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Life Insurance (US only) 

message: I am the author of the current draft of the UK Inheritance Tax page, and I am only here adding a link. 
However the introduction to this article contains the following: "a form of tax levied upon the bequest that a person may make in their will to a living person or organisation"
I think someone with USA law experience might consider the following two problems which my UK-law-trained-mind has with that sentence:
# saying that estate tax is levied on bequests in wills implies that if assets pass outside your will (e.g. on intestacy) there is no tax.
# strictly, a "bequest" is a gift of PERSONALTY, so the sentence is only correct if (surely not!) REALTY is tax-exempt. (You "devise" realty.) AndyJones 12:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pointing that out, it was pretty poorly worded. I fixed that, but may have introduced other problems. I chose to make it say estate, and not just assets, because debts tend to be netted out in the absence of an exception. I'm not an attorney, but am pretty familiar with the US estate tax. Now that there is a separate article for the UK estate tax, all the US details should probably get moved to United States Inheritance tax or probably United States Estate Tax, and this article should be redone to be general about different types in different systems with only a small summary of the UK, US, and other specific systems. - Taxman Talk 13:23, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * I agree with you, but I think it's best if I step back and don't get involved. Incidentally, am I right to understand that on your side of the pond you actually call it "estate tax" (not "inheritance tax" as we do)? If yes, perhaps this article should redirect to "Estate Tax" rather than, as now, "Estate Tax" redirecting here. AndyJones 14:06, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bequest 

message: I have inserted a tax avoidance section.  There is a huge industry out there that assist taxpayers in tax planning to avoid paying inheritance/estate tax.  I have linked to a few services.  It is not spam, it is simply an identification that there are estate planning services available to minimize tax liabilities.--Jbpo 20:18, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tax Avoidance

message: Estate taxes contribute $70 billion per year to America's $2.119 trillion budget.
Unsolicited 13:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Does that number gel with the current revenue received by the federal government from the estate tax, or is it calculated based on past levels of revenue?  Obviously, with the tax shrinking yearly, you would expect the number to decrease through 2010 . . . · j·e·r·s·y·k·o talk · 14:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revenue 

message: Two points:
#Opponents (not supporters) call the estate tax a "death tax". 
#There's been bipartisan legislative efforts to repeal or reform the estate tax in the House of Representatives:
#*"After the Senate failed to repeal the estate tax by three votes, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) suggested that the House should draft an estate tax relief bill. In response to this request by Sen. Frist, House Ways and Means Chair Bill Thomas (R-CA) drafted the Permanent Estate Tax Relief Act of 2006 (H.R. 5638)." 
What's the best place in the article to describe opposition efforts (not just arguments)? --Wing Nut 18:59, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hopefully, the best place to do that will be in a new Estate tax (United States) article.  See the discussion 2 sections above.  I think there can be a section on legislative back-and-forth in that article.   I wouldn't call it a "bipartisan" bill, though, as this is still mostly a Republican effort and is hardly different from a mere repeal of the estate tax (the article you reference says as much).  I've read that the effort is actually merely an attempt to get some Northwestern Dems to vote for it because it includes something about reducing taxes on logging.  All that to say, "bipartisan" and even "compromise bill" are not accurate descriptors, imo. · j·e·r·s·y·k·o talk · 19:11, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I expect it be a party-line vote.  We're talking about potentially 4 Senate Dems switching on this, and 4 seems overly optimistic from a Republican perspective, I think (though it would be enough for the bill to pass). · j·e·r·s·y·k·o talk · 19:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Opposition in U.S.

message: Will someone PLEASE clean up the opening two sentences:
"Estate tax is one part of the Unified Gift and Estate Tax system is a form of tax imposed in the United States upon the transfer of the property. The estate is imposed on the decedent's estate."
This kind of grammar does not exactly inspire confidence in the quality of the article to follow. (Reluclant to do this myself because it's not totally clear what it's meant to say.) AndyJones 08:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Speaking of intro, it italicizes Unified Gift and Estate Tax as if that is the official name. I'm not sure that's the official name, and not sure it helps to have the name there anyway since they're not unified anymore. EGTRRA solved that. The gift tax, estate tax, and GSTT exclusions are no longer all the same. - Taxman Talk 21:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro 

message: Jbpo said: Yet, you have decided, for some unknown reason, to search for phrases that can be repeated from the Heritage Foudnation article cited. How about reading it first, then using adult logic skills to make a sentence or two summary of the disincentives to invest at 55% tax rates vs. 15% tax rates on capital gains, or total avoidance by using tax shifting schemes.
:No, I searched for eight WORDS and only one phrase.  In the source, I didn't find the WORDS that were used in the sentence I removed.  You used "logic" to create a "summary", yet you used WORDS that weren't even in the article - in fact, MOST of the (non-trivial) words in the (original) sentence (that you added) were NOT in the article.  Exactly how does a source SUPPORT a sentence when most of the WORDS in the sentence aren't in the source? Or, to put it differently, exactly how would an objective editor distinguish between something that was simply MADE UP, and something that is supported by a source, if an editor (like you) has (as you seem to say) the right to essentially write a sentence that isn't in the source at all?
:In short, you seem to think that if you can't point to one or a few sentences in a source to support the text you added, then your addition is STILL okay unless another editor can convince you that your summary/logical analysis of the source (which resulted in what you wrote) should be changed.  You're wrong.  The burden of proof for justifying the addition of text is on the editor who added it.  And that burden is to point to where in a source that text came from.  Of course, some of the words in the source can have been changed for consistency or clarity or brevity, sentences combined,  etc. - things that fall into the realm of copyediting.  But what you are claiming is that you can take a source and create, more or less out of whole cloth, what YOU think is a fair summary.  That's BOGUS, because there is no way the sentence is easily verifiable.  John Broughton 13:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is a summary of several arguments pointed out in the Heritage articles.  It is not a text copy of someone else's research, but it is fully supported by documentation at Heritage and Club for Growth, two partisan organizations well suited for an arguments section.  I do have the right to summarize, rephrase, shorten to fit into an encylopedia entry.  Regardless of your Wikilawyering ("burden of proof"?), the current edit is just fine, and while more verbose, it is a legitimate restatement of my original post. --Jbpo 14:39, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, let's leave the article as is (in the paragraph under discussion), and the arguments as is, as well.  John Broughton 15:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed sentence, take two 

message: I removed the following from the original article, as it was clearly presented as a comment.  There are, however, some information in this section that is probably encyclopedic and may help readers.  I am not a legal expert, and would appreciate someone who is to help rephrase the following section in such a way that it appears academic, rather than colloquial.
:===2010, the year of no estate tax===
:Comments have been made about the incentive for potential heirs to kill old or hospitalized sick people in the 2010 year before the estate tax reappears in 2011.  This ignores two things.  First, this idea itself may spur Congress into removing this one year treatment by either permanently raising the exemption in lieu of repeal or replacing the estate tax permanently with a pre-death recognition of very long term gains on highly appreciated assets, especially publicly traded stock.  Secondly, with repeal taxpayers would need to know the tax basis of their property.  The current rule of stepped-up basis makes the tax basis of an asset, the date of death value (subject to some modifications).  Without the estate tax, no stepped up basis and we have would have a capital gains tax liability in lieu.
(71.102.133.145 02:37, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed commentary, need legal expertise 

message: I am a US citizen,non-US resident, my husband is a French citizen, also non-resident. Upon my death, he will automatically inherit 50% of my pension plan.  As a non-US citizen or resident, will he be liable for US taxes on this money?  We spend lots of time in the US each year, but not enough to qualify for resident status. Please clarify the situation for me. Thanks.83.202.100.243 23:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You should consult a U.S. tax attorney or accountant with international expertise because your issue may be covered by a treaty.  U.S. citizens are taxed on their worldwide assets.  However, a credit is applied against U.S. estate tax for certain death taxes paid to other countries.  In addition, there could be a treaty between France and the U.S. that directs how such money is to be taxed by both governments.  The French government may want a piece of the pie.  FloridaTaxMan 03:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  inheritance taxes in case of non resident spouse 

message: Is there a way to make that section prettier? Maybe with a table? I don't have the Wiki-experience necessary to create one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Superabo (talk • contribs) 01:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Tentative Tax" Data 

message: I updated a few sections to expand on some comments provided by other contributors.  Most notably, there is a reference to marital deduction problems for non-U.S. citizen surviving spouses and an enhancement to the strategy/planning provisions.  If there is anything someone wants covered or expanded, I'm happy to help.  FloridaTaxMan 03:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  March 8, 2007 Updates 

message: An anonymous user at IP67.175.152.174 has astutely picked up a spelling error that apparently has been languishing in the article since July 3, 2006. The correct word is indeed "curtesy," (not "courtesy"). A curtesy is "the husband's right, at common law, upon the death of his wife, to a life estate in all the estates of inheritance in land which his wife possessed during their marriage." Steven H. Gifis, (Barron's) Law Dictionary, p. 113 (2d ed. 1984). "Courtesy" is "a polite, helpful, or considerate act or remark." Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, p. 326 (2d Coll. Ed. 1978). Yours, Famspear 21:13, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Curtesy and courtesy

message: what was added about the "Death Tax" neologism is neither original research nor novel interpretation. This is a common argument found in virtually every essay against the Estate Tax. Furthermore the mathematics for this particular argument are discussed earlier in the article. Thus is only makes sense to have this there.  Otherwise only half of that particular argument is explained. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.12.77.96 (talk • contribs).
*I've reviewed this, and I agree with Jersyko's view that the sections added appear to be OR. If you want to include this material you must source it, please. See WP:V which is the policy on this point. AndyJones 07:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jersyko's Unwarranted Erasure 

message: At present there is a major deficiency in this article since has no information about the origins of the US Estate Tax, the major laws that have been passed concerning it since its introduction, and an overview of the rates during its history. 66.213.10.5 (talk) 14:36, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Estate tax (United States) -- NEEDS "HISTORY OF" 

message: Wow, this article is a mess.  I recall attempting to clean it up a year or two ago, but I obviously failed.  In any event, I'm essentially useless here now because I am no longer practicing estate and trust law, so my knowledge has grown stale.  Original research pervades this article and many citations are needed, but one of the main problems is simply article organization.  I may be able to help on the latter point, and will give it a try in the next few days. · jersyko talk 23:26, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A mess 

message: I apologize if this has already been pointed out here and I missed it, but I just noticed that there is an article called Death tax which has some characteristics of being a POV fork. Should the material in the "Death tax" article be cleaned up and merged into this article? Famspear (talk) 17:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Do we have a POV fork out there?

message: This table has no sources, it doesn't even give the year the data was taken from. I didn't want to totally remove it because I don't edit pages drastically, but I did want to call attention to it. I noticed it seemed really fishy when I read in the IRS Audits section that after 2006 there are nearly 200 estate tax lawyers at the IRS. The table claims 440 returns (implying only 440 deaths). I find it incongruous that the IRS has one estate lawyer for every two estates. Plus, there's gotta be more than 440 estate tax returns per year in the US. July 18, 2008.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.32.92.133 (talk) 22:31, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Debate - Arguments against - Table

message: The article should discuss the impact that estate, gift, and inheritance taxes have on the federal budget. For example all estate, inheritance, and gift taxes account for less than 2% of annual total federal tax revenue collected in a given year in the United States versus the larger percentage in federal tax revenue recovered from capital gains tax revenue. In addition, hypothetically speaking if all estate, gift, and inheritance taxes were permanently eliminated after 2010 instead of reemerging at a 55% rate with a $1,000,000 exclusion, a good argument could be made that simply raising the capital gains tax rate on the highest marginal rate from 15% to 20%, given the permanent elimination of estate, gift, and inheritance taxes, may in fact make up for any loss revenue due to the hypothetical permanent elimination of the estate, gift, and inheritance taxes. However more research into the effects of the permanent elimination of estate, gift, and inheritance taxes needs to be taken to sufficiently determine that if estate, gift, and inheritance taxes were permanently eliminated would such losses in revenue be recovered from a higher capital gains tax rate. In addition, if such taxes were "permanently" eliminated would this have an ancillary effect of conjuring greater capital gains tax revenue in the long run? Such questions should be researched to understand if capital gains tax rates could be adjusted to "completely" offset any loss of revenue due to the permanent elimination of estate, gift, and inheritance taxes. Somebody please respond to these comments.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.230.162.32 (talk) 23:03, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Estate Taxes vs. Capital Gains Taxes

message: When the article uses this phrase, I assume it means only heterosexual married couples? -- Kendrick7talk 20:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Given the federal Defense of Marriage Act, it must. Interwebs (talk) 22:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what I thought. I've gone ahead and clarified the article. -- Kendrick7talk 06:37, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  married couples 

message: A good argument against the death tax is the Investor's Business Daily editorial, A Good Year To Die. Briefly: 
• Once dubbed the 'Paris Hilton' tax, the levy … is double taxation, and just because you can't take it with you doesn't mean the government should take it from you or your heirs 
• It takes capital out of the cold, dead hands of entrepreneurs and puts it in the unproductive hands of government. Heritage Foundation economists reckon that the federal estate tax alone is responsible for the loss of 170,000 to 250,000 potential jobs each year.
• The death tax accounts for around 1% of federal receipts on average. But tax avoidance efforts and compliance costs in term of time and money cost the economy much more than that. 
• People should not be punished because they work hard, become successful and want to pass on the fruits of their labor, or even their ancestors' labor, to their children. As has been said, families shouldn't be required to visit the undertaker and the tax collector on the same day. 
Asteriks (talk) 09:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguments in Favor of Death Tax Repeal 

message: Besides having current info on taxes (and debates apparently) as they stand at present, the article should have a history (when there were no federal inheritance taxes, who introduced them, what historical forces caused the shift, what date did congress pass it, which president signed it, and what significant revisions have been made since). Such a history section would probably belong near the top, as a bridge from the introduction to the present law. I suggest this because that's what I was looking for when I came here, and none of my questions were answered.
Here's an Treasury Department page with inheritance tax history; it's probably free to copy...
The origin of the Federal estate tax
Jeffryfisher (talk) 00:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I second this notion.  I came to this article to see if I could find a brief history of when the estate tax was instituted and/or revised, but none was apparent.  And Jeffryfisher's ustreas.gov URL is now defunct (go figure). Dave (talk) 16:37, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: This sentence can be read to say that Warren Buffett is the father of Bill Gates:
"One of the world's wealthiest men, Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, and the father of another of the world's wealthiest men (Microsoft founder Bill Gates), William H. Gates, Sr., favor the estate tax[27]."
Suggested rewording:
"Two of the world's wealthiest individuals, Warren Buffett, founder and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and Bill Gates, co-founder and chairman of Microsoft Corporation, favor the estate tax[27]."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.130.212.80 (talk) 13:48, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewording of Buffett/Gates statement 

message: On December 17, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. This article will need some review to conform it to the new law. I've made a start. Famspear (talk) 22:29, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made some more updates. This is a work in progress, so there may be more corrections needed. Famspear (talk) 22:30, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  New law enacted December 17, 2010 

message: I don't see anything on the history. I've got a PDF of Jeffrey Cooper's "Ghosts of 1932" on the estate tax from Google Scholar, & it offers some, including the original 1926 rates (1% at US$50K, 2% @US$100-200K, 3% over that), & a table of the '32 change. He names C. William Ramseyer as the bill's architect (tho he creds L. H. Parker, Chief of Staff of Joint Committee on Taxation, with the actual rates table); it was designed to raise US$500 million/yr. Cooper also says Congress passed it more/less in a panic, without careful consideration of the effect, in an act of political cowardice... (Yeah, boy, is that unusual for Congress. :/) Worth adding?  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura  16:19, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Back taxes 

message: The graph that was removed was re-added to the article. The material has a clear reference to a reliable source. Also, with images to see the full description and the full references you need to click on the image to get the full description page. For clarity, these references have now been placed in the description caption. Any further suggestions for improvement are appreciated.Guest2625 (talk) 00:59, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed sourced material 

message: This page is in dire need of a legislative history treatment  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.6.215 (talk) 02:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs a legislative history portion 

message: appears to state the 1797 rate at "2 per centum ad valorem" until  1802 (page 973) which would be $10 on $500.  One should also note that "stamps" at that time were not modern adhesive stamps but were similar to the British stamps of that time, either stamped (embossed) onto specific paper or attached by means of a seal of some sort.  Collect (talk) 01:34, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  legacy tax of 1797 

message: Substituted at 14:42, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: It would be nice to update the chart "Estate tax returns as a percentage of adult deaths, 1982–2008" with more recent data. Here's a link with data through 2011 (as of 2011, 0.13% of adult deaths had estate tax due):  http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/taxfacts/content/pdf/deaths.pdf but surely there are more up-to-date sources. Crust (talk) 22:37, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Update chart with data since 2008

message: IMHO the connection of unrealized capital gains and the estate tax is a key concern.  It is unclear what is the history of this and also the current status.  There is an Wiki pg “Stepped-up basis”.  JdelaF (talk) 00:12, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stepped-up Basis