A rich person already pays taxes. Also, I’m not sure about what you mean with “community labour” - a rich person also pays his employees.
This is nothing but double taxation. Ie highway robbery.
This is nothing but double taxation. Ie highway robbery.
But yes, when a rich person gives their money to another person, that other person now has to pay tax. An estate, gift, or income tax.
Many rich people pay their employees, some don't; wage theft is very popular, as are other forms of labor exploitation. But an educated, healthy, available labor force is a very expensive asset to create. We all invest in creating that through things like paying for schools, health care, and raising children. One of the ways we pay for creating that asset is taxes. Rich people, as the ones most benefiting from society, and also as the ones with the most spare money, should pay their fair share for that.
EDIT: the point of raising it is in the context of this discussion, we are talking about the very wealthy. A $15,000 gift to their children isn't very much of a transfer as a percentage. To hand off large amounts of wealth to the next generation, for sure the annual gift exclusion isn't nearly enough to avoid inheritance taxes.
Similarly, the rich person paid taxes and then their rich kids pay taxes on their inheritance.
No more double taxation, and everyone gets to do whatever they want with their post-tax income!
I was under the impression there's a large exemption for inheritances under a few million and then it's still a number lower than income tax on the rest.
Philosophically, you don't own anything after you're dead. Someone else, alive, is getting income in the form of an inheritance.
In any case, in the US the estate tax and the gift tax are basically the same thing, so rich people can give the same millions to their kids either before or after they die and pay basically the same taxes: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57272