We get taxed so much while we’re living, it seems kind of overkill to tax folks when they die. To me, dying is bad enough already.
And now Terence Jeffrey, editor of Human Events , gives us another reason to oppose the death tax: it’s murdering the First Amendment.
Nearly half of the nation’s family-owned newspapers have been lost in the last few decades. These independent papers are being gobbled up by corporate media behemoths like Gannett and the Tribune Company, and the result is fewer independent voices in the media.
One reason these family-owned papers are disappearing is clear: the high death taxes simply can’t be paid without selling the business. That’s not right. A person who works hard to build a business does not deserve to have that business destroyed.
The government disagrees. Jeffrey points to a former IRS commissioner, who says, “. . . the owners of these things don’t look objectively at the world. I own it, I want to pass it on to my son, why should my son have to pay an estate tax to get it? [The owner] looks at it as his possession. The IRS, however, views those taxes as a means for some equalization of wealth nationwide.”
Two philosophies here. One says individuals should be free to gain from their hard work; the other says government should grab it away so we can all be squashed down to the same low level. For richer, for poorer, till death do us part. And part . . . and part . . . and part . . . .
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.