Summary of the Estate Tax

Summary of the Estate Tax Barclay Reiser Economics 212 08/03/00 The estate tax is a tax placed on the assets of a deceased person as the estate is passed to the heirs. This should not be construed as a tax on the heirs but a tax on the total holdings of the estate, both tangible and intangible. The gift tax and generation- skipping taxes are taxes developed by the government to reduce the loopholes that the estate …

…the death of a loved one. This is a hard enough time in a person’s life, without the government’s confiscation of a large portion of the deceased’s savings and accomplishments. If there is a $23 billion dollar revenue loss, it could easily be offset by reducing the current surplus, or best of all, budget cuts. Both of these changes would feed more capital into the economy thus creating more taxable revenues. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**