Back to the farm and the estate killing tax, it won´t be long before there´s a food shortage.

Whoever said "Zimbabwe" was on the money.

There will be food shortage problems even if the estate tax were a non-issue. I saw when my party had all three levers of power that NOBODY is interested in stopping the Big Spending Government Freight Train. So I knew this woud happen. The estate tax, at its core, has always been immoral. This fight should have been fought and WON handily by Republicans long ago.

This "death tax" truly is government confiscation! Why We, the People sit by and let "our" government take what we have earned and already paid taxes on is a disgrace! I guess we really do deserve the politicians we elect!

This sotry is completely untrue. Fox News and talk radio are merely fabricating falsehoods about famers and ranchers dying, and being taxed for it.

Susan Rice will eplain how wrong they are on all the talk shows on Sunday.

I´m no fan of Paris Hilton, but the thought of any citizen´s wealth being "targeted" by the government is very disturbing.

This is how the Feds will get their grubby meat-hooks on more and more and more land.

#6 I too am no fan of the Hilton´s and I am not one by a long shot...and the this won´t effect them at all. It will however screw my heirs out of any hope of living, working my ranch after I pass because I am not Paris Hilton. I actually work for a living, raise black angus cow calf operation and Boer Goats. Between o and the drought...and my absolute refusal to take a handout from the federal government...I am SOL.

Stand and fight?

Put it into a trust, #8, or incorporate it. That´s what we´ve done. It´s not perfect, but it helps protect the asset.

#6.. Right there with ya. No fan of Paris but in the end someone back there did the work, made the money, and should be able to do whatever the hell they want with it.

This is pure class warfare and government forced wealth redistribution. The liberal spokesman in the article essentially says just that.

This defense of the estate tax by libtards is such a lie. Of course it is meant to destroy family farms. How else to pay off the corporate farm pimps who collect billions from "farm subsidies." Simply tax family farms into oblivion then let the jackals clean up the carcass.

The absurdity of having to sacrifice all that a family has worked for, in some instances for generations, is another reason to fear for the future of our once great nation.

This is clearly to drive people off of land and into cities where they can be more easily controlled

Karl Marx would be very proud:

From communist manifesto:

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

[as a side note, while i was looking this up I discovered this one:

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

which explains the virulent reaction to the secession story that went around earlier this week]

This is a gift to the big agri-farms. Within two generations there will be no successful family farms left. All the family-owned farms will be broken up and sold off to pay estate taxes with only the big corporate farms surviving.

thank you 10. I was going to ask if a family trust would solve the problem. Corporation sounds workable also. I see a lot of new biz for estate and trust attorneys...

Please find a tax adviser who can teach you about combining Trusts and Family Limited Partnerships.

Briefly, setup a Partnership and transfer the ownership of your assets to in. Then you and your wife each annually give the maximum tax-free gift, currently $13K, to each of your heirs - each heir getting a combined $26K. The gifts aren´t actually cash, but a portion of the ownership of the Family Limited Partnership. Because the majority of the Partnership is held by family members, and no outside investor would pay full market value for a share, the portion gifted can be valued at a greatly reduced price allowing you to transfer more than the $13K tax-free limit. As General Partners, you and your spouse retain complete control over the assets of the Partnership until you both die. Then the assets are controlled by a Trust to be distributed as you directed.

These vehicles are not cheap to setup and require a knowledgeable estate planner. Investigate, Family Limited Partnerships, Management Trusts, Irrevocable Gifting Trusts, Crummey Letters. You will probably also want a large life insurance policy, naming your children as beneficiaries, to help with the burden of taxes.

Skeptics will no doubt post about eventual problems with the IRS but I assure you there are well known, completely legal estate planning tools that have been around for generations and been approved by the tax courts. Congressmen and their ilk have no intention of paying estate taxes on their holdings and, with sufficient planning, you have the tools to significantly reduce or eliminate the estate tax burden.

The bigger problem is that we shouldn´t have to do what #17 details, nor should the full employment for attorneys scenario exist in the first place, just to live a normal life and pass along to our families what is ours.

As government has always figured out ways to confiscate hard earned income and inherited income earned by hard work from ancestors, individuals must through attorneys, bankers and accountants work hard to prevent this legalized theft.

The best advice is for those with assets in their twilight years begin gifting while alive to loved ones as gifts within the tax guidelines and have your estate be suffficient to cover end-of-life debts and no more. If you own real property, immediately establish a trust.

Probate and taxes can wipe out an estate by as much as 70%.

Read #17. Then read it again.

Best advice you´ll ever get, for free.

My beloved kOokette and I are incorporating this year. Best move ever for transferring our assets to DD. However, I plan on spending said assets, so it might be for naught.