The election of Donald Trump will, among other things, stave off, for now, the relentless and insatiable hunger that progressives have for dead people’s money. Hillary Clinton had, as part of her campaign platform, put forth a plan to both increase and modify the estate tax. On her website, she called this “restoring fair taxation.”

There are a few universal truths in this world. Here’s one: When progressives uses the word “fair,” they’re looking to pick your wallet. There is nothing fair about the estate tax. The confiscation of a person’s lifetime accumulation of wealth, wealth that he’d use to fulfill the fundamental desire to care for one’s offspring, is the grossest of immoralities. I’ve written about this here, here, and here already, but as a wise man observed, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

One of the ugliest arguments I’ve heard in favor of the estate tax is that a person’s children did nothing to earn the wealth he wants to leave them, and that they’ll be better off without it. Well, news flash, those liberals who support the estate tax did nothing to earn the deceased’s wealth, nor did the government (that taxed the deceased’s income his entire life).

Herein lies the essence of redistributive taxation’s moral turpitude. Those who demand that money be taken from some to give to others in the name of “fairness” or whatever euphemism is in vogue at the time don’t understand that they have no right to the fruit of another’s labor, no matter how good their intent or noble their purpose. Even Robin Hood, whose philosophy has been mischaracterized as “steal from the rich, give to the poor,” was actually taking money that the tax collectors had taken from the poor. Particulars of feudalism aside, he was an opponent of the state, not its agent or advocate.

What right does the state have to take one person’s wealth to give to another? The state can justify fee-for-service taxation, including a baseline level to fund defense, courts, law enforcement, municipal services, and the basic functioning of the government itself, and “usage fee” taxes such as those on gasoline. The taxed are receiving something for the money taken from them. However, a simple “take from A to give to B” is mere theft, no matter how it is rationalized in terms of social justice or social good.

This holds true for estate taxes as well. Some argue that parents do their children a disservice when they bequeath great wealth to them, but whether true or not, these people have neither the standing nor the moral right to impose that opinion on others via governmental force. They have even less right to a parent’s wealth than the children do, so any proclamation that children didn’t “earn” their inheritances ignores the truth that the state didn’t earn it either. And, frankly, they’d be better off without it, as well, given how profligate and wasteful government has shown itself to be.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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