Monday, August 4, 2008

Letter to Chuck Schumer Re Death Tax

PO Box 130
West Shokan, New York 12494
August 4, 2008

The Honorable Charles E. Schumer
313 Hart Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Schumer:

I oppose the inheritance or death tax and urge you to vote to repeal it. There are many New Yorkers, to include the Ochs Sulzbergers, the Rockefellers and the Goulds, who are wealthy but have never paid any inheritance tax because they put their money in trusts. Congress has never seen fit to tax trusts, leaving the big fish to eat the remains of small.

There is one estate tax I do favor: an estate tax on trusts that hold family-owned newspapers. Your patrons at the New York Times ought to practice what they preach, and I am sure that you will see to it that they never will.


Sincerely,


Mitchell Langbert

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Dear Moron,
You of course know that there is no "death tax". You can die for free. Middle class people do it every day. There is however a tax on huge unearned inherited wealth - it has gone a long way towards preventing the kind of concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few that so devastates nations in Asia and the Middle East.
I can understand why you don't like the NY Times. They are not mindless cheerleaders for the authoritarian rich.

Barry Nolan

Mitchell Langbert said...

Hey Barry, thanks for your comment, but I'd appreciate it if you did not call me moron. Can we not disagree without insult? I have noticed that the left becomes more insulting as it becomes less informed.

If the death tax prevents concentration of wealth, why have the Ochs Sulzbergers continued enjoy the fruits of the most extreme version of concentration of wealth? As well, the Rockefellers and the Goulds have not paid the death tax. The super-rich, where concentration of wealth occurs, have avoided it through family trusts which Chuck Schumer and his fellow Democrats have always avoided taxing.

Family businesses may take several generations to build. Examples include Johnson and Johnson, which was founded during the Civil War but did not become a very large firm until the 1940s and IBM. By taxing inheritance, today's super-rich, such as the Ochs Sulzbergers, inhibit the rise of large firms, newspapers and the like that might compete with their firms. Thus, the inheritance tax encourages the freezing of wealth concentration among today's elite, which is why the Democrats favor it. Eliminating the death tax would enhance competition and reduced concentration by allowing competitive firms to grow over several generations