Death, birth, whatever!

Via Glenn Reynolds, who calls her a "supply sider," Whoopi Goldberg's latest remarks show so much common sense that she's starting to remind me of my late father.

Whoopi actually stated that the inheritance tax amounts to double taxation:

During a discussion of Republican Presidential candidates on ABC's The View, which the comedian co-hosts, Ms. Goldberg said, "I'd like somebody to get rid of the death tax. That's what I want. I don't want to get taxed just because I died." The studio audience started applauding, but she wasn't done. "I just don't think it's right," she continued. "If I give something to my kid, I already paid the tax. Why should I have to pay it again because I died?"
Why? Because the government believes that your money is not yours. You are not free to give it away when you're alive, or after you're dead. You are not free to pay people to perform labor without reporting them, and increasingly, you are generally not free to buy things for more than $10,000 without reporting the transactions. Even though you might think you have earned it, your money is not yours, and paying the taxes does not make it yours.

The idea that the government is taxing you "just because you died," well, the government really doesn't need death as an excuse to tax people.

They could just as well use birth.

(And to "save the planet" they probably will.)

UPDATE: More on the "baby tax" idea:

Writing in today's Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child's lifetime.

Professor Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, called for condoms and "greenhouse-friendly" services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits.

And he implied the Federal Government should ditch the $4133 baby bonus and consider population controls like those in China and India.

I'm sure the IRS would love having a new source of revenue.

posted by Eric on 12.10.07 at 08:58 PM





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Tax people for being born? How unlikely! Sheer nonsense! Utter hogwash!

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2007/12/the-maoist-solu.html

Uh... Well then... Bring out the hogs and the soap I suppose.

BUUUUURRRRNING HOT   ·  December 10, 2007 09:44 PM

All these new tax proposals will do nothing to solve the problems that prompted them.

What they will certainly do is provide income to members of the governing classes, without their having to produce the equivalent in wealth.

Ergo, providing income to the governing classes is the actual purpose of the proposed tax.

The founding generation called such people aristocrats. Their revolution was intended to eliminate such parasitism. Now, it's so popular that our presumably better educated citizenry votes to subsidize their masters in the manner to which they are accustomed.

Brett   ·  December 10, 2007 11:49 PM

"The idea that the government is taxing you "just because you died," well, the government really doesn't need death as an excuse to tax people"....no, but, if your dead, you're much less likely to contest the tax.

Edward Lunny   ·  December 11, 2007 10:06 AM

The so called "death tax" is actually an income tax. The person who died is obviously not taxed. The inheritor of the dead person's wealth is taxed, because it is totally new income for that living person. I might also point out the the new income is not earned income. It is categorized more like a gift.

And double taxation happens all the time because the same money keeps circulating and every time it changes hands it is taxed. In fact, looking at taxation that way, money is not really taxed at all, the transactions are.

Doug Purdie   ·  December 11, 2007 01:58 PM

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