Stephen Moore: Kamala Harris Wants America To Have The World’s Highest Death Tax

By Stephen Moore, The Daily Caller News Foundation | October 14, 2024

Here is something that no one in the media is reporting as Vice President Kamala Harris continues to duck and weave like Muhammad Ali in the ring to avoid any questions about her economic plan.

Under the Harris tax plan, the number of Americans subject to the hated death tax would significantly increase. This would happen because Harris has declared that she will let the Trump tax cut expire next year if she becomes president.

Thanks to the Trump tax cut, the amount of an estate that is currently exempt from tax is roughly $13.6 million.

But according to the Internal Revenue Service: “Under the tax reform law, the increase is only temporary. Thus, in 2026, the exemption is due to revert to its pre-2018 level of $5 million, as adjusted for inflation.”

Harris wants this to happen. She wants to soak the millionaires and billionaires. But under her plan, thousands more families will be clobbered by this tax when a parent dies.

We aren’t talking about the very rich — people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, who are already subject to the unfair death tax. (Though these super billionaires have built massive family-foundation tax shelters to escape the tax.)

Now many farms, ranches and family-owned businesses will have to be sold after a funeral just to pay the taxes. These are mostly owners and operators of small businesses that have been built up over a lifetime from nothing to million-dollar-plus enterprises. The owners have already paid Uncle Sam millions of dollars in income, property, payroll, energy, business and other taxes and annual levies.

Now, they will have to pay a 40% estate tax rate, plus another 5% to 15% depending on what state they die in. In other words, up to half of a family inheritance must be forked over to the politicians.  The IRS gets almost as much as the kids and grandkids. The agents should at least pay their respects at the funeral!

How is that fair?

But wait. It gets worse.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has introduced a bill to make the death tax even more onerous. Under her bill, the estate tax rate would rise to as high as 55% to 65% and lower the exempt about to $3.5 million. This means that as much as two-thirds of an estate could be seized by the government. This isn’t taxation. It’s confiscation of family property. Is the IRS going to seize grandmas jewelry of grandpas stable of horses and the mansion he built himself?

Will family businesses have to undergo the indignity of a fire sale to vulture companies just to pay the taxes owed?

Guess who is a supporter of the Elizabeth Warren tax scheme? Yes, Kamala Harris thinks this is a swell idea.

Incredibly, if the Warren tax came to pass, the United States — the land of the free — would have the highest estate tax in the world.

Higher than Russia. Higher than China. Higher than the socialist nations of Europe.

The real-world impact of death taxes this high is that older people will avoid the death tax by lavishly spending down the family estate so that there is no money left to tax. The incentive is to die broke. Family businesses won’t be able to pass from one generation to the next. This is how the death tax destroys jobs and investment.

The chart below shows the U.S. already has one of the highest death taxes in the world and we would be the highest in the world under the Warren-Harris bill.

By contrast, Trump will make his death tax relief permanent. Family businesses and estates will remain vibrantly intact.

This is one of many vital tax issues voters should consider on Election Day.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Stephen Moore is a visiting senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. His latest book with Arthur Laffer is: “The Trump Economic Miracle.”

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