LETTERS
Estates should go to heirs, not IRS
Re: Michael Hiltzik’s business column, “ ‘Death tax’ con refuses to die,” April 13:
Obviously, Mr. Hiltzik has little hope for financial success in America. He expresses gladness if only his estate would have $200,000 in taxable assets so that his government could receive 45% of it, rather than his heirs benefiting from his labors.
He goes on to dismiss death taxes as insignificant, representing only 1% of the federal tax take. When the government is spending trillions of dollars in deficits and bailouts, I suspect that that 1% is a pretty healthy annual amount.
My support for the end of death taxes is only based on my success in benefiting from this great country’s opportunities and my desire to support my children, who in the present economy are likely to be moving back home in their late 40s.
I want to keep what I have earned.
Thomas E. Kolanoski
Costa Mesa
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Another Hiltzik column with a familiar (perhaps unconscious) technique: a too-brief, specious argument on a fundamental issue, buried well down in the article.
The key anti-estate tax point is that it’s unfair double taxation. Hiltzik dismisses this issue in six lines, claiming, “It’s not unusual for income in the U.S. to be taxed multiple times -- don’t we all pay income and sales taxes on some of the same dollars?”
This ignores at least three things: Sales tax does not tax income, it taxes spending; we do not pay income tax twice, whatever other taxes we may pay; and the issue is not whether income is taxed multiple times, it’s whether such taxing is unfair.
Stephen Colley
Altadena
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I agree with your column that the estate tax should be upheld. It should be thought of as an estate tax rather than as a death tax, which sounds like an incorrect description.
An estate tax is a variation of income tax. If a person has made a lot of money in this country, that person should be willing to have his or her estate pay tax to support the country that made the success possible.
The estate tax holiday of 2010, a further giveaway to the richest people, should be repealed so the Treasury can get more needed income.
John Paladin
Valencia
