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National NewsConservative News
A Good Man Leaves an Inheritance
By Gary Palmer
Posted on: May 5, 2006
n Proverbs 13:22, the Bible says that, "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children." Well…under current federal estate tax law, if a good man leaves an inheritance to his children and/or his grandchildren that is worth more than $2 million, they will have to pay a 46 percent tax on everything above the exemption within nine months of his death.
One other thing, if a "good man or woman" wants to pass on something to their children's children before they die, the federal government has a special generation skipping tax that also applies.
With or without the Bible to guide them, when it comes to the issue of the Death Tax, the vast majority of the American people have decided it is a curse that needs to be broken. Poll after poll indicates that anywhere from 65 to 75 percent of Americans think the Death Tax should be permanently repealed. Even a New York Times poll from March 2005, found that 76 percent of people say they are opposed to any estate tax and a March 2006 poll by Harris Interactive found that among people with an annual income between $35,000 to $75,000, 73 percent favor permanent repeal.
More than likely most of the people that believe the Death Tax is an immoral, confiscatory tax have reached that conclusion without the help of the Scriptures. Unfortunately, if Congress fails to act prior to 2011, the impact of the Death Tax will be even worse. On January 1st of that year the Death Tax rate will be 55 percent of everything over $1 million and it will literally apply to everything left behind.
Children that inherit a family business will owe the Death Tax on the appraised value of all buildings, equipment, vehicles, and finished and raw materials inventories. Children inheriting a family farm or ranch will have to pay the Death Tax on the value of the family's land, farm buildings, vehicles and equipment, and livestock as well as the value of standing timber or estimated value of crops.
And contrary to what many defenders of the Death Tax claim, the families of small businesses and family farms and ranches are paying the tax.
A report by the Center for the Study of Taxation stated that, 88.6 percent of all taxable estates filed in 2003 were less than $5 million and these estates were forced to pay over 40 percent of all estate taxes collected that year. Moreover, 95.6 percent of the returns were for estates valued at $10 million or less and accounted for almost 61 percent of the estate taxes paid in 2003.
Sadly, many of these families had to pay the Death Tax by selling parts or all of their businesses or farms and ranches which violates another scriptural principle. Ezekiel 46:18 says, "Moreover the prince shall not take any of the people's inheritance by evicting them from their property."
The prince, or the government, should not take away the people's inheritance by forcing them to give up their property. Yet, each year families all across America are being forced to sell property to pay the Death Tax. A 2000 report by the U.S. Forest Service and Mississippi State University found that 33 percent of the forest owners were subject to the Death Tax and of those, 40 percent had to sell timber or land to pay the tax. Given that the average tree farm is worth $2 million and that the average annual income of a tree farmer is about $50,000, paying off the government's Death Tax will cause a number of families to be evicted from some, or possibly, all of their land.
Finally, there is another Bible passage that speaks about the government depriving someone of their inheritance.
In I Kings 21: 3-4, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel conspired to take the vineyard of Naboth.
Ahab demanded that Naboth sell or trade his vineyard to him, but Naboth replied, "The Lord forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you!"
Ahab eventually got Naboth's land through what some might call a "pro-active Death Tax"-his wife Jezebel had Naboth killed and Ahab simply took the vineyard.
Obviously there are some that have a different view of the Death Tax. Some see it as a means of leveling the economic field, keeping the rich from getting richer while supposedly redistributing their inheritance to the poor. There was another book that became a bible of sorts for millions and is still revered by many liberals today. The third plank of that book, Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, called for the "abolition of all rights of inheritance."
Well, life is full of irony. On January 1st of this year, Russia eliminated its Death Tax and so did Sweden. But unless Congress acts to repeal our Death Tax, come January 1, 2011, our Death Tax will be 55 percent, over half way to Marx's dream of abolishing all rights of inheritance. The good news is that the House of Representatives already passed a Death Tax repeal bill and the Senate is set to vote on repeal sometime in May of this year.
It will be interesting to see if there are enough senators willing to stand up for the parents that have worked long and hard to leave an inheritance, as well as a heritage, of a family business or farm to their children and grandchildren. After all, as the Bible says, "A good man will leave an inheritance to his children's children."
Bible Bill Just Election Year Politics, February 23, 2006.
Liberal Neutrality, October 29, 2005.
The Separation of Truth and State, April 11, 2005.
The End of the Search, January 29, 2005.
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