If the lower bound on estate taxes are too low, certain kinds of capital intensive family businesses like farms take a big hit as they pass from generation to generation -- in a world where they generally have a net disadvantage to corporations already.
I also love how the family farm remains a universal justification even as it’s almost entirely disappeared from American life. It’s similar to how every American child knows what a pig and cow sound like despite almost none of them having seen one. Our culture is funny.
That aside, I’m not arguing for a lower estate tax threshold. I’m arguing for an elimination of the state up basis at death, at least for assets which the estate tax has not been paid.
If Joe Farmer’s kids keep his $10 million farm, they won’t pay any taxes. But if they sell it, they ought to have the same basis as Joe would were he still alive.
I would say most kids have seen a pig or a cow either at a farm, driving past a farm or going to the zoo (zoos are a common experience for most average kids).
Zoos I've been to tend to have more exotic animals - giraffes, elephants, zebras, lions, monkeys, etc. I think a zoo would prefer to direct its budget/resources towards these kinds of animal attractions.
In the U.S., a pettings zoos or a county fair might have pigs, cows, and others like goats, horses, etc. Working animals or ones that kids/families raise for contests/shows, say the 4H society or FFA.
I don't remember seeing pigs or cows at any zoos I've been too. Have you? I've certainly driven past cows in fields, but a child living in a city may not experience that. I think pigs are even more rare since they don't seem to be kept outside.
There's really no reason other than custom that appropriate numbers of pigs couldn't be raised and slaughtered in any city. They can subsist entirely on table scraps, the disposal of which is a regular burden for cities. They don't require lots of room to roam. They do produce effluent, but that is only a burden at mega-farm volumes. An individual hog will produce roughly what an individual human will produce, but only when it approaches the right size to butcher. Eventually this will seem normal, if only because chicken husbandry is growing more common all the time in many cities.
I come from a long line of farmers. It hasn't been possible to have a "family farm" for 4+ decades. Any profitable farm has 1000+ acres and is basically a corporation.
I know the intent of your comment is to support family farms, but now these tax incentives have become perverse and really only benefit rich people, not family farmers.
That’s the convenient excuse that anti-estate tax advocates use, yes.
In reality it would be pretty easy to setup the tax code to avoid such issues, but instead we’ve whittled the estates tax down to nothing to benefit heirs of the ultra wealthy.
