Suppose now that the founder and spouse both die, and the fortune is passed on equally to two heirs. Each heir gets $50m. Under your system, this money has never been taxed. The heirs do not sell the shares, because that would be stupid. They take out loans backed by the value of the shares and use the borrowed money to invest in other vehicles. They live off the returns, interest, and dividends from these investments. The top long-term capital gains rate only 15% and the top income tax rate is 35%. So these ultra-rich trust fund beneficiaries are actually paying much less tax on their unearned income than a person who works hard and earns very large wages. Is that a good tax system? I hardly think so.

You might counter my argument and say that capital gains taxes should be increased to match the income tax rates. I wouldn't argue with you there. But there must be some levelling of the load in this society. It would not be right for Paris Hilton to pay 15% of her massive income and for a hard-working high-earning person to pay more than double that rate.

I would also like to say that the very wealthy are in many cases receiving a larger benefit than the average American does from our government spending. The value of their dollar-denominated assets is protected by the government stewardship of the currency, the markets, and even national security. They have a lot to lose if the country takes a bad turn. So shouldn't they contribute proportionately more to the function of these protective systems?

You ask if the wealthy should share some of the burden, they are. You say they are contributing less then in any previous war, I find that hard to believe. It appears your arguments are based upon the idea that the rich neither deserve nor have earned the wealth they have accumulated, let alone have the right to pass it on to their children.

I do believe in shared sacrifice but I do not believe in using the law to take from others more than what I give myself. The rich pay high taxes already. Heck, the middle class pays high taxes.

We are talking about wealth that has already been taxed. Sometimes at the corporate level before dividends and then again as dividends paid. That's enough, why take more and more and more? Because others are jealous of success? Because they have more? Because we can?

It seems to be all about taking, taking, taking. That is just wrong. It is a form of legalized theft and bad for America.

Some of the skeptics in this thread are right. Know how many family farms are affected by this tax? 3 in 10,000. or .03%. .03%!!!!! Yet repealing this tax would cost a trillion dollars over the next 12 years. Those arguing for repeal are really arguing for an increased national debt.

So I guess the republican party trying to do away with the estate tax makes them the "death party".

But I ask you again, now that the government has plunged us into a state of permanent war mobilization, do you not believe that those families who have benefitted the most from the structure of our society also carry some burden of helping to pay for that structure? In no previous war have the wealthy been asked to contribute less. Why, when our armies are deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq and now even along our own border, should we be talking about raising taxes on future Americans, and 99.5% of current Americans, in order to mollify the super-wealthy among us?

Do you remember the concept of shared sacrifice? Of sacrifice in proportion to benefit? Instead of repealing the estate tax during a war, we should be raising the estate tax, raising the income tax, raising the capital gains tax, and reinstituting the draft.

The founders feared titles not wealth. The idea of them taking private property at confiscatory rates as now would have chilled them.

The idea of government safeguarding equal opportunity is true enough but taking from citizens is not safeguarding anyone, it is tyranny.

From an economic point of view an estate tax would reduce the savings rate since the primary motivation of extremely wealthy people to continue to accumulate wealth is passing it on to their children. As for having idle rich as a social problem, well it's pretty far down on the list of worries.

I don't know the history of the estate tax in detail but would note that we didn't even have a federal income tax until 1916. According to the Treasury Department,

In 1916 Congress for the first time levied a tax upon the transfer of a decedent's net estate. The Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives explained that a new type of tax was needed, because the "consumption taxes" in effect at that time bore most heavily upon those least able to pay them. The Committee further explained that the revenue system should be more evenly and equitably balanced and "a larger portion of our necessary revenues collected from the incomes and inheritances of those deriving the most benefit and protection from the Government."

The Committee recommended an estate tax rather than an inheritance tax because many states already imposed inheritance taxes. It felt that the estate tax helped to form a well-balanced system of inheritance taxation between the Federal Government and the various states and that an estate tax could be readily administered with less conflict than a tax based upon inherited shares.

Various changes in the estate tax provisions of law, as well as their repeal, have been proposed over the years, but the principle has been retained. Our office has available an excerpt from the Ways and Means Committee's report on the Revenue Act of 1935. The report reproduces a June 19, 1935, message from President Roosevelt to Congress advocating an inheritance tax, in addition to the estate tax. Although the inheritance tax proposal was not adopted, the message provides information on why the taxation of individuals' estates was considered appropriate.

You will note that the first Estate Transfer Tax was enacted in 1797, when the founders were still actors in the government. So clearly they believed that such a tax was consistent with the principles of the Constitution. Estate taxes were also passed during the Civil War, Spanish American War, and World War I, which is the act currently in force. So you see that the present action in the Senate is the first time in history that anyone will simultaneously claim to be at war, and move to repeal the Estate Tax.

Back to the patron saints of the libertarian party: the Founders. Paine wrote in The Rights of Man that England should enact an inheritance tax to address the unequal distribution of land. Alexis de Toqueville praised the egalitarian estate law in Democracy in America. You don't need to look far in the papers of early American figures to find statements warning against inherited wealth, aristocracy, and the accumulation of land in the hands of the few.

The ad is funded by a front group for ultra-wealthy families like the Mars and Waltons. Obviously these groups stand to save billions if the estate tax is abolished. But they are also lying and misleading in pressing their case. Less than 0.5% of families will ever face the estate tax. Only 4% of small business have a net worth high enough to trigger the estate tax, and you must understand that the tax (as currently written) applies only to amounts in excess of $3.5 million. So a business worth $4m, if given as an inheritance, would face a tax of $175k. A business worth $10m would face a bill of $2.3m, but I'd be surprised to see such a valuable business structured as a sole proprietorship.

Anyway, I think the fundamental argument here is very flawed. Mr. Joyner seems to think that, for some reason, giving money to your heirs should be untaxable, even though giving money in most other ways _is_ taxable. To me there does not seem to be any reason for this exemption. Furthermore, because the government needs to raise its revenues somewhere, repealing this tax on the 0.5% is going to raise taxes on the other 99.5% of Americans. It is extremely likely that this balancing tax raise will actually have a material negative impact on small businesses and farms.

In closing, I'd like to invite any commenters here to post even a single, documented example of a small family business or farm which, in the last 5 years, has been sold off or closed because of the burden of the estate tax.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I pretty much accept all ads here. I've run spots from Democratic candidates, anti-Bush t-shirt sellers, and even George Soros. I've rejected maybe 2-3 ads over the last two years, and those were just issues of taste where the advertiser ultimately changed the ad design and was accepted.

Please check your "facts." If only 6500 people are expected to pay ANY estate taxes in 2006(0.27 percent) how does this effect middle class business owners? In 2004, only 300 farm estates were subject to any tax and of that, only 27 didn't have enough liquid assets to pay the tax. In addition, there are special provisions in the code that allow for small business and farms to pay off over time so they can avoid sale of the business/farm.

Look, I don't like any taxes, but I'm sure as hell not worried about those poor millionaires. Especially if it means that I have to help make up the difference.

I'm sure you know how to use Google. This is the first link that popped up when you search for "Paris Hilton Inheritance." http://www.gorillamask.net/heiress.shtml
Her inheritance from her grandparents was $27.5 millon. The inheritance was split between 8 children and 12 grandchildren from Conrad Hilton's fortune. So there, you're wrong. Next time do some research before posting nonsense.