Much as been said of the semantocs of the use of death tax and of the phrase "taxing money already taxed" or more simply "double taxation".
Let's step back an think about the taxes on what some call capital. The political use of the word is given some odd attributes, for example, by cutting taxes on the rich, we create capital that will be used to create economic activity and jobs. (I'm stumbling around on just one cup of coffee here, so I don't have Rove's clever wordsmithing down pat.) And as capital is used to create jobs, taxing capital will reduce the capital and thus destroy jobs.
Well, that is just one frame of reference....
Let's go back to first principles and ask, "why do the poor pay taxes on capital, while the rich do not?"
Why are the poor and middle class double taxed, but the rich exempted?
One can turn around and observe that taxes merely transfer money, capital, assets, resources, or any of many other colored words, from one place to another. A tax on income or capital transfers money from the corpus of the one to the corpus of the many where it is used to either create a job, the police patrol or street repair or the military patrol; or used to create capital, the school building or the road or the military tank.
In other words, taxes are used to buy for labor, goods, and capital, with the difference between the corpus of one doing the buying and the corpus of all doing the buying being who benefits.
But it isn't just that everyone, in theory, benefits from what is bought with taxes, but that the individual can not practically buy the goods, services, and capital as an individually.
To put this is simple terma that even one of the authoritarian conservative elite will endorse:
The individual can not afford to buy an army which defend only his property, at least not without defending the property of the middle class and poor. Therefore, all should pay taxes to defend the nation.
Ok. Everyone agrees.
But what is the benefit of "defending the nation"?
Well, our liberty, of course.
Of course liberty was once distinct from property, after all it was a last minute bit of poetry that saved us from "right to life, liberty, and property" and gave us the expansive "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness." But in that instant, "liberty" came to encompass "right to property".
Ok, so what do we have. We have property, like the land my house sits on and my house. The government defends my liberty; my right to live in my house on my land without being bothered by others. But we most often say, "the government protects, or defends, my property".
Of course, this protection and defense involves many things. Protection from crime - the police and courts, protection from being denied access - the roads, protection from hazzards - the fire department.
So, while I pay taxes on the money I earn by working, and face it, most of us are double and triple taxed, first and always the "payroll tax" - FICA, then the Federal income tax, and then the State tax, and for some the city tax, when I buy my house and land, I am then "double taxed" every year with the property tax.
Of course, the property tax is the most basic tax of all, the one that our local government most often used from the earliest years, and depends on heavily.
The theory of the property tax is that the amount of the tax is proportional to the amount of property, the tax on ten acres is ten times the tax on one acre, because the cost of protecting ten acres is ten times the cost of defending one acre. Or alternatively, the value of protecting ten acres is ten times the value of protecting one acre.
So, with the goal of the ownership society is to first make everyone own house and land so they will pay property taxes, right?
Of course, as a renter, you live in property that someone else owns and pays taxes on, so a portion of your rent is really property tax.
So, when I buy my house with money that was double or triple taxed, I then am taxed again on the money I earned every single year.
Now, let's use the biggest billygoat, errr scapegoat, the billionare. Ignoring the fact that the billygoat didn't "earn" his billions of dollars of property, not from a tax standpoint, and wasn't double taxed on it, the question is why should it be different than my house and land and only be taxed at the death of the billygoat?
(I know I am laboring here - this is the first time I've written what I have screamed at the TV and radio..., but I'm trying to create the narrative....)
Well, one reason is that doing so would tax capital and thus reduce capital.
Ok, then why am I taxed on my property?
The logic of that reason is that property tax forces me to chop off a bit of land or part of my house in order to live in my house, and I was triple taxed already on my house (FICA, Fed and Mass income taxes).
Well, my house is part of my capital, it is something that allows me to use my labor for earning money at a job rather than being the nomad who spends much of his time on shelter.
The billions of the billygoat are a monetary measure of capital that is used to earn money, just like my house tax evaluation is a measure of capital. A more complex form of capital which includes intellectual property, patents, copyright, brand names, reputation, as well as land, building, machinery, etc.
So, does the capital of the billygoat need to be defended? Absolutely!
Think of it, who stands to lose more if the mongol hordes of dirty commies come thundering over the poles to invade and occupy the US? I might lose the liberty of sorta complete control over my house and land, but I would probably still get to live in it, though I might need to accomodate a dozen of the thundering horde, but what of the billygoat? He will lose all of his billions!
If my capital is worth a million dollars (and with Bush's inflation, that won't be too long) and the billygoats capital is a billion dollars, what I lose is one tenth of one percent of my capital compared to what the billygoat risks losing.
So, why should the billygoat be able to defer paying to defend his property until he is dead and no longer in a position to lose anything?
To me, it seems that the logical tax to defend the nation is a tax on property, proportional to the value of the property to be defended?
Because this tax defends the LIBERTY to accumulate, create, hold, and use capital, I call it the LIBERTY TAX.
And liberty needs to be defended every day, not once one is dead, so let's end the illogical death tax on property and replace it with the LIBERTY TAX on property that pays for the LIBERTY we enjoy every day.
