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Anna Nicole and the Estate Tax
Our friends in the Yesterday Forever lobby continue to spin the estate tax as a “death tax”, as though the departed fill out tax returns from their graves, and as though a death tax – even if it were one — would be worse than the alternatives,which are life taxes. In truth of course, the estate tax is exactly what the name says – a tax on the estates that the wealthiest people pass along to their heirs. The departed don’t bear the tax; the heirs do. Which means it’s really a tax on trust fund babies, as opposed to people who work for a living.
If this strikes you as a bad idea, then you might consider the case of Anna Nicole Smith. Ms. Smith, who usually is described as a “former Playboy Playmate,” entered celebrityhood for a surgically-enhanced physiognomy, a marriage to an oil-rich octogenarian, and a proclivity – it was not quite a talent – for garish self-presentation. She died last week in her hotel room in Florida under circumstances that are still under investigation. It does not seem likely that the estate tax did her in, the Yesterday Forever lobby notwithstanding. It is conceivable however that a higher tax could have saved her.
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About
Jonathan Rowe was a writer who wrote about the commons, diseconomy, economics, economic indicators, corporations, and many other subjects.
Jonathan was an editor at the Washington Monthly magazine and a staff writer at the Christian Science Monitor. He contributed to Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly, Reader’s Digest, Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, American Prospect, Adbusters, and a host of other publications.