Inheritance tax can be paid slowly, over many years
The Seattle Times editorial on inheritance tax was not completely accurate [“Repeal or reduce the death tax,” Opinion, Dec. 7].
The IRS allows terms in which inheritance tax can be paid over many years, rather than all at once, so that small businesses don’t have to be sold to pay the tax, all at once.
Inheritance taxes help restrain America’s tendencies in favor of an aristocracy, and I’d favor increasing them. With higher taxes on inheriting anything that isn’t a family business, there would be a lot of revenue from those who can afford it most, which could translate into less of a tax burden for everyone else.
— Tony Formo, Seattle
Tragedy for small businesses to change hands?
The heirs of a small business should not need to be protected from inheritance tax. It is a transfer of assets, every much as a transfer of cash, stock, gold, etc. There are other options for paying taxes than selling the business or having insurance, such as savings, inherited cash, a loan against the business, etc.
Or include one’s heirs in the business ownership at an earlier time — exercise foresight.
Taxes are not the only issue. One or more heirs might prefer the cash, and dividing the inheritance might force a sale.
It happens. Do we protect them from that also?
Selling does not automatically mean a loss of a small business to a large one. It could be an opportunity for some other person who wants a small business. The editorial seemed to assume it’s a tragedy for small businesses to change hands.
Sure, make some adjustments to the law. Sure, consider allowing people with businesses — or stock, or other noncash inheritances — to pay the tax in installments or defer some of it until the asset is sold. But inheriting a small business is still a transfer of monetary value to one or more people who didn’t previously have it.
— Judi Edwards, Bremerton
Winning the genetic lottery
The Seattle Times should quit the demagogic rhetoric of mislabeling an unearned windfall to the heirs of the extremely rich a “death” tax, and return to some thoughtful unbiased reporting on the issue.
Though imperfect, the basic philosophy of our current tax system is to tax individual accessions to wealth. For most Americans, that means we pay taxes on the earnings of our hard work. But does The Times point out the unfairness of this work tax? Even if an average American is lucky enough to win the lottery, that person will pay high taxes on the windfall. Does The Times complain about the wrongness of a luck tax?
How, under any concept of fair taxing, should most Americans to be taxed on non-discretionary income generated by our labor or even a lottery winning, but then not tax the recipients of more than a $2,000,000 unearned windfall of genetics?
The Times bemoans that inheritance taxes supposedly break up small businesses, but then provides no statistics on any businesses destroyed by heirs who could not borrow or insure against the taxes on their multimillion-dollar inheritance. If this tragedy happens so often, one wonders why The Times provides us with not one example.
Perhaps the tax system should be changed completely, but as long as it taxes the labor of most Americans, it should also tax the unearned windfalls of the extremely few Americans already fortunate enough to be related to multimillionaires.
— J. Anthony Salmon, Burien