Actors, musicians, and other famous people are in character 100% of the time they’re in the public eye. What you see is rarely who they are.
5 Likes
Pretty sure most super rich liberals are doing lawyer shit to get around all of that too. Rich people by and large suck regardless of their supposed beliefs.
3 Likes
Maybe he’s a mostly apolitical person who is Republican by default because that’s’ what he grew up as and hasn’t been motivated to change his registration, but isn’t a guaranteed straight ticket voter (when he bothers to vote).
Of course that’s a possibility. But, I’m suggesting that whether or not your children pay 75 million dollars in taxes forces someone to make a conscious political choice.
Does anyone even pay the estate tax? Don’t they just set up trusts and shit?
I think they got rid of the estate tax entirely if I remember right. That being said taxing inheritances aggressively is one of the best ways to reduce inequality, it affects a pretty small group of actual people, and even better that group of humans is almost universally very unlikable. The fact that the eDems got beat on it is one of the better pieces of evidence over on the ‘complicity’ side of the argument.
Avoiding inheritance taxes is an old game that the older money the world over has been playing for a long time. They aren’t by any means all created equal.
And from an enforcement perspective it makes it much easier since you only have to do it when people die and it’s for all the money. Justifies the expense of probing REALLY hard.
Lol they didnt get rid of it just doubled it to start at like 11 million now.
But like i said im pretty sure the vast majority of rich peoples wealth gets funneled to the kids via loop holes and doesnt get taxed a dime. But i guess assets still get hit. Thats probably it though
Garth played Obama’s inauguration, he’s playing this one, he declined an invitation to play Trump’s. I could have sworn he was a self-described liberal.
That said, “American Honky Tonk Bar Association” lyrics are…not liberal.
Not that he writes any of his own stuff. He just peddles whatever Nashville songwriters have drummed up for him.
I prefer the conservatives in that song more than the ones that stormed the capital…
1 Like
Yeah if conservatives want to go commiserate with country music in honky tonks they are more than welcome to do. Have fun!
Country musicians are much more liberal than their listeners. Did you all miss Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Taylor Swift, etc.
1 Like
Pretty sure the majority of T-swift listeners are young girls who don’t care much about politics or are liberal themselves.
I know some nazis had an obsession with her but they certainly aren’t her major demographic lol
He’s at least had a co-writing credit on maybe half of his hits and does have a few rare songs with a solo writing credit, most notably his early hit “Not Counting You”. Toby Keith writes a lot more of his own stuff by comparison, but he relies heavily on a couple of frequent collaborators as his co-writers.
.07% of estates are taxable. Meaning 1 in every 1,400 people pays estate tax. There are less than 2,000 such estates each year. The exemption is about $23 million per married couple.
That said, its a big headache if you have hundreds of millions of dollars because it is a flat 40% on the amount over the exemption. But if you have a few decades to plan, as most of these people do, there is a lot you can do to limit / eliminate the tax.
First, and most basic, you and your spouse can each give $15,000 per year to as many people as you want tax free to both parties. So if you’re a typical rich guy with 3 kids and each of your kids has 3 kids, that is 12 people both you and your spouse can give $15k per year - or $360k per year. Do that every year for 30 years and boom, that’s $10 million out of your estate.
Now, say you own a business with a market value of $200 million. Ignore the exemption for a minute You give 10% to your kid. That’s a taxable gift of $20 million, right? Nope, you find an appraiser to say its worth, oh, $5 million because of lack of marketability and control. And if you’re really smart you wait to gift it until your company has a terrible year. Maybe that $20 million is now only $3 million to the IRS. Happens all the time.
There are all kinds of other tricks. Grantor retained annuity trusts allow the rich guy to loan his kids money at the risk free rate, which they use to invest in riskier assets. Intentionally defective grantor trusts allow rich people to “sell” assets to trusts benefiting their kids while funding the “purchase.” Life insurance trusts allow for the death benefit to escape the estate, while the premiums are paid by the rich guy. Donor advised funds let rich people with liquid stocks get a deduction for the market value of the stock while escaping capital gains tax. There are a million other ways to get around it.
If you are super mega rich, like an actual billionaire, you’ll probably pay some estate tax. But if you have competent planning you have to be REALLY rich to not be able to significantly limit your liability.
6 Likes
Welp, based on a cursory Google search you’re right, I’m not sure why I was so convinced that he was just one of those who gets fed all of his songs. My mistake.
1 Like
But like .1% of the population would call all the wealth ‘stolen’. Calling inheritance ‘taxable income’ I think is something I think could be popular.
2 Likes
But they didn’t “earn” it. And shouldn’t people who “earned” that money when they were alive be able to keep it?
Imo why not both?
And some inheritance can be exempt. $11M is already too much imo. But Republicans want an unlimited amount exempt.
But if you have a wealth tax that works, it hits people who inherit anyway, so 6 one-half a dozen the other.
1 Like
I meant the beneficiaries didn’t “earn” it.
1 Like
The standard argument for taxation is not that “they didn’t earn it”, it’s that it’s necessary.
It seems relatively efficient to me. Wealth is never easy to measure or tax