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Comment by oftenwrong | Hacker News Reader

And then the children of the dead, wealthy baby boomers will pick up where they left off.

...which is why we need to fix the estate tax. Large inheritances benefit only a few, often to the detriment of others. One could even argue that it doesn't benefit the few much either, because unearned wealth tends to bring its own psychological problems. I know all of the arguments against a robust estate tax, I've heard them literally hundreds of times, but I find them unconvincing. If we want to keep claiming we live in a meritocracy, the effects of an estate tax on ensuring (restoring) equal opportunity are not optional.

You'll forgive my skepticism in thinking that the folks who would be affected by confiscatory estate taxes will simply resort to more complex structures to avoid it--trusts, corporations onshore or off-, etc. Moreover, it isn't a settled matter that high estate taxes are per se "fair." The deceased already paid taxes on all that income, why should the government again get to help itself to what's left over?

I've seen this "double taxation" canard a hundred times already. It's lazy, perhaps even dishonest to the extent that it ignores obvious reality. Fact is, money is generally taxed whenever it moves. Income tax and sales tax are obvious examples. Why should inheritance, which is an essentially similar transfer, be exempt?

> If we want to keep claiming we live in a meritocracy, the effects of an estate tax on ensuring (restoring) equal opportunity are not optional.

As of 2018 a couple can leave >$22 Million without paying any tax on it. That's enough for your children, their children and their children's children (and potentially on and on) to never have to work. Generational wealth like this is how we get and perpetuate "classes".

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