From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Jul 29 2003 - 00:06:14 MDT
Rafal writes
> >> ### Massively progressive inheritance tax is collected from dead
> >> people, and distributed evenly as a dowry at maturity, giving
> >> everybody a level playing field.
> >
> > Rafal, I'm quite surprised by this proposal. It would appear to
> > require either (a) one "promote" that people should "die"; and/or (b)
> > some "fixing" of the legal playground such that when you enter
> > cryonic suspension ones assets are taxed (or worse confiscated) in
> > some way.
>
> ### Well, this is not meant to be the only possible source for capital for
> the poor, merely a remark that assuming that taxation is indeed necessary
> (and this is a big if), taxation of the dead (as in really dead, rotten and
> disintegrated) is less damaging than the taxation of the living. Of course,
> if nobody dies (or if everybody gets frozen), this expedient would be denied
> to the would-be poor people's benefactor.
The problem is, as always, one of incentives. Your proposal would
give rich people less incentive to amass wealth. "Well, you can't
take it with you", they would very well say.
Things work best when people are free to do what they want with their
money, even seeing to what happens to it after they are dead.
Lee
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