Here is something no one in the media is reporting as Vice President Kamala Harris continues to duck and weave like Muhammad Ali in the ring to avoid any questions about her economic plan.
The American Business Defense Foundation reports that under the Harris tax plan, the number of Americans subject to the hated death tax would double or triple. This would happen because Harris has declared she will let the Trump tax cut expire next year if she becomes president.
Thanks to the Trump tax cut, the amount of an estate that is currently exempt from tax is roughly $13.6 million.
But according to the IRS: “Under the tax reform law, the increase is only temporary. Thus, in 2026, the exemption is due to revert to its pre-2018 level of $5 million, as adjusted for inflation.”
Kamala wants this to happen. She wants to soak the millionaires and billionaires. But under her plan, thousands more families will be clobbered by this tax when a parent dies. This brings new meaning to the idea of “the grim reaper.”
We aren’t talking about the very rich — people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, who are already subject to the unfair death tax. (Though these super billionaires have built massive family foundation tax shelters to escape the tax.)
Now many farms, ranches and family-owned businesses will have to be sold after a funeral just to pay the taxes. These are mostly owners and operators of small businesses that have been built up over a lifetime to million-dollar-plus enterprises. The owners have already paid Uncle Sam millions of dollars of income, property, payroll, energy, business and other taxes and annual levies.
Now they will have to pay a 40% estate tax rate, plus another 5 to 15% depending on what state they die in. In other words, roughly half of a family inheritance must be forked over to the politicians. The IRS gets almost as much as the kids and grandkids. The agents should at least pay their respect at the funeral!
How is that fair?
But wait. It gets worse.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has introduced a bill to make the death tax even more onerous. Under her bill, the estate tax rate would rise to as high as 55% to 65%, and the exemption would lower to $3.5 million. This means that as much as two-thirds of an estate could be seized by the government. This isn’t taxation. It’s confiscation of family property. Is the IRS going to seize grandma’s jewelry or grandpa’s stable of horses and the mansion he built himself?
Will family businesses have to undergo the indignity of a fire sale to vulture companies just to pay the taxes owed?
Guess who supports the Warren tax scheme? Yes, Harris thinks this is a swell idea.
Incredibly, if the Warren tax came to pass, the United States — the land of the free — would have the highest estate tax in the world.
Higher than Russia. Higher than China. Higher than the socialist nations of Europe.
The real-world impact of death taxes this high is that older people will avoid the death tax by lavishly spending down the family estate so that there is no money left to tax. The incentive is to die broke. Family businesses won’t be able to pass from one generation to the next. This is how the death tax destroys jobs and investment.
By contrast, former President Donald Trump will make his death tax relief permanent. Family businesses and estates will remain vibrantly intact.
This is one of many vital tax issues voters should consider on Election Day.
Stephen Moore is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He is also an economic advisor to the Trump campaign. His new book, coauthored with Arthur Laffer, is “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
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The Marxists running as so-called Democrats here in the United States have to create various ways to destroy the American economy in order to usher in their grand vision of the United States of America being reduced to their desired vision of yet another failed and bankrupt socialist Utopia. So of course, taxes have to elevated to the level of confiscatory across the board in order to collapse most of society to that of universal poverty and misery.
The estate tax is merely one of many taxes that the Democrats plan to raise to obscene levels to kill off the American economy, so Marxism can be ushered in as the ultimate solution. Thus, achieving what the left calls universal social and economic justice. Same as what has already been done in countless other failed socialist / Marxist experiments around the world.
If the American people are dumb enough to allow Democrats to retain any degree of political power and control going forward, they will have no one but themselves to blame for what follows.
Bad enough we’re taxed to the hilt while alive and then they also tax you for dying. Most ridiculous tax yet.
Warren and Harris had already proven that between them they have no brain.They don’t comprehend that you can’t tax yourself out of debt.
Something has to be done about the $2 trillion deficits.
comrade cameltoe the ho says, “hi el to hitler” as she uses a strap on to screw Americans!
Remember folks; the estate tax is confiscation of assets that survive all the other taxes, income both federal, state and local, property taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes and a bunch of others like gas , cell phone, hotel taxes….. The support of estate taxes is one of the clearest indicators of communist thinking that exists. Dont think for one second that youre safe if you fall below proposed thresholds. The dems are playing to their current proletariat; people who are without assets. Their goal is that all except their inner covens be asset free.
If Harris is elected in Novemver, please remind me to die on December 31 just to cheat her out of her nasty tax scheme
I don’t know how she’s going to survive Brett Beir or Joe Rogan when she can’t survive the View or Howard Stern. Brett should begin by immediately acknowledging how she “comes from a middle class background” and everyone “loved their lawns”… just get that out of the way!
see the handwriting on the wall? once she and the dumb as craps get that passed the next step is for the government to kill off the rich for the extra tax money so the dumb as craps can buy more illegals. crafty but effective.
Death to the death tax!!
What is to stop parents from transferring their wealth to their descendants BEFORE they die? Sell them everything for pennies on the dollar. Then there would be no estate with a value above the threshold to hit with this onerous tax.
Kamala wants the US to have the highest taxes in the world period! categories don’t matter. Redistribution of wealth and bankrupting the country is what she wants. Teach all you overly wealthy white supremacists a thing or two.
I had a friend who had a pretty good description of the estate tax. It is a tax that politicians have come up with “that just in case they may have missed a tax while you are alive, they come by and take one last bit of tax”. Ben would swing his arm with his hand open and slowly close his hand as he brought it across his body. Describes it very well if you can visualize moving your arm and hand in slow motion, and slowly closing the hand just like you were grabbing up cash on a table!
I will in my entire life time never have to worry bout bein over $3 million however, if each Gov’t official stopped voting to increase their pay check, paid into the same insurance we have to and not have all the privileges we pay for….they would not need to tax it at all. They are all millionaires on our dime.I say tax themselves what they tax us and the deficit would disappear.
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This would be a boon to life insurance sales, but I bet their association will campaign against it. I was a member; generally their ethics are strong and they want the best for their clients. This is a monstrosity.
Well I don’t have to worry about it anyway. My ‘estate’ will be good if it reaches one-half a million, much less $5 million.