Spencer Cox: “First, notwithstanding much of what is in the air here, it does not raise any material amount of money for the Federal…”

“First, notwithstanding much of what is in the air here, it does not raise any material amount of money for the Federal Government. Nominally, about 1 percent. But, in fact, when we take into account the 65 cents on the dollar in compliance costs and the nearly $10 billion a year that is sucked out of the economy paid to lawyers and accountants and life insurance experts for compliance, it is a wash. Some estimates say it actually costs more than it raises. Second, it is not an income tax. You do not have to have any income to pay it, even though it is part of the Income Tax Code, 88 pages of it. Instead, it is a property tax and is meant to be confiscatory. These are confiscatory rates, well over half, and the purpose is to break up large concentrations of wealth. But the tax does not do that, either. In fact, it concentrates wealth because family farms, ranches and small businesses that are liquidated to pay the tax man are absorbed by larger conglomerates.”