Good day to reflect on wealth transfer | Eastern North Carolina Now

    With his usual "Bill Moyers wise guest" he above gives some important info on wealth transfer today.

    I worked in the area of Insurance Estate Tax planning with a Series 6 Securities License as well. The history of our current high Estate Tax Code is interesting. This same kind of great wealth had accumulated under the Robber Barons of RR / Oil / banking/ etc. in late 1800-early 1900.

    There was much the same favoritism which led to the Great Depression. The rich walked away with great wealth before the public had any idea a disaster was coming. Average investors got just plain "legally robbed" of anything they had accumulated.

    At that point the US leadership asked an important question: "Is this a country of Lords and Kings --- or a open opportunity for all who want to succeed off their sweat of the brow --- rather than fancy loopholes and entitlements for the rich?" At that point the Estate Tax went in by Congress.

    It's specific intention was to spread any estate around through taxation. No Estate could survive it for more than 3 generations. It was vague enough to keep any fancy lawyer or accountant from beating it / it was severe enough to bankrupt any estate back to "normal income of the masses" / it was tax on the "privilege of the children to inherit the wealth their parents accumulated."

    This is why the Vanderbilt Biltmore Manor in Asheville, NC, is a public place over a private residence for the rich and their buddies. The tax is due / in cash / within 9 months of death of both parents. Any money transferred three years prior to death is considered a "gift in anticipation of death" and sucked back into the estate. Now our Congress is trying hard to wreck it because we have 1% owning 90% of US wealth through slick legal and tax maneuvers made by their legislative minions.

    While they claim it is "just keeping hard-earned money in the hands of those who earned it"---My question is: "How many workers did you abuse and use to get rich --- and not share a penny more than you absolutely had to?" They can give it away --- as is Bill Gates, but some estates are so big and grow so fast as to defy the depreciation of inflation.

    The biggest question is: "What the hell are you going to do with more than the millions you can now inherit before the Estate Tax kicks into the picture----EH????