Just on the multiple taxation issue: all the money in circulation has been taxed many times. That doesn't mean future transfers shouldn't be taxed. The argument about multiple taxation has force when the ultimate recipient of the money seems to have had a claim on it at the time the first tax was imposed. Shareholders own a corporation; they own the money it earns, on which it pays taxes. Should they have to pay a tax again when that money is distributed to them? This is plausibly described as double taxation. When I earn money and pay tax on it, then use my after tax earnings to pay a lawyer (for example), it doesn't look like double taxation to require her to pay tax. So the question of whether the inheritance tax is an instance of double taxation comes down to the question of whether children have this sort of pre-existing claim on a parent's wealth. You can take this as a question directed either to your philosophical intuitions, or to our current legal system, but in either case I don't think it's preposterous to say the answer is no.
Eastman, John wrote:
Cornell Clayton's position below really is preposterous. Talk about double taxation -- the money left via a will has already been taxed, of course (often several times!). I'm curious, though, how far he would go with it. If I give my kids $100,000 over 4 years for college tuition, would he tax that as "income" to my kids? How about room and board for the 18 years before that?
But to bring this back to constitutional law. Are there any constitutional limits on the taxing power at all? Anything to prevent a 90 or 100% confiscatory estate tax? In the Federalist 10, James Madison counted it "the first object of government" to protect the diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate. Is there anything in the Constitution that is designed to further this purpose?
John C. Eastman Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law Director, The Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence
-----Original Message----- From: Cornell Clayton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 23, 2003 12:58 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Statistics
Glenn Reynolds wrote:
2. It would be ironic, if people's right to pass their property on to their descendants were generally regarded as unfair and illegitimate.
I, for one, do think that laws allowing inheritance of massive amounts of property or wealth (or economic advantage) are unfair and illegitimate. Following a Rawlsian conception of equality -- which I believe is the best interpretation of our constitutional commitment to equality -- I can see no difference theoretically between one inheriting arbitrary advantages (or disadvantages) on the basis of birth-family as opposed to color of skin. One does nothing to merit either one, so one has no more just expectation to inherit privilege on the basis of the family you are born into than to inherent privilege on the basis of the skin color you happen to be born with. This is one of the reasons I think the Republican attack on the estate tax is so egregious. It is not a "death tax", but a tax on income that is not deserved or merited! Not only should we not eliminate the estate tax, we should tax inheritance at a much higher level than earned income.
Of course, I readily concede Glen's other point, that as a matter of history (as opposed to theory) the US experience with race discrimination is quite different than thinking about problems created by economic inheritance.
Cheers, Cornell Clayton
-- Kermit Roosevelt Assistant Professor University of Pennsylvania Law School 3400 Chestnut Street Philadelphia PA 19104 215.898.5185
