Political Quotes

“I am here to stand for our elderly, our sick, our poor, our workers, America's middle class, who do not benefit from a regressive tax system. The purpose of the estate tax is to mitigate the accumulation of wealth by family lineage. That makes for a fairer society in which future generations all start with more or less the same opportunities. Democracy needs an estate tax. By contrast, monarchies are characterized by not having estate taxes. The estate tax is the most progressive of any of the Federal taxes. According to the Internal Revenue Service, out of the approximately 2.3 million deaths in 2000, only 1.9 percent of estates pay the estate tax. These numbers can be contrasted with the income tax, where about 70 percent of families and single individuals owe tax. The concept of an estate tax goes far back into history. There is evidence of a 10 percent tax on transfers of property at death in ancient Egypt, as early as 700 B.C. Later the Greeks and Romans adopted estate death taxes.”