Death Is Not A Taxable Event Essay, Research Paper

“Death should not be a taxable event. There is a strong belief that if you work a lifetime to build up a family business or build up a family farm, that it is wrong for your children when you die to have to sell that business or sell that farm to give government up to 55 cents out of every dollar worth of your life’s work even though you paid taxes on every penny of income when you earned it.

“In this bill, we change the tax law so that death is not a taxable event. So if your Granddad bought a farm and your parents worked it and then you worked it, as long as you keep it in your family, it belongs to you. All income would be taxed once. We would eliminate the dual taxation that comes with the death tax. And we would eliminate a situation where people basically end up having to sell off the lives’ work of their parents to pay death taxes.

“Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs remarkably is working the same ranch that her family has had for four generations. When her Dad died, she had to sell off part of her land in order to give the government this death tax. I think that’s fundamentally wrong.

After 55 years of waiting, World War II veteran John Heckendorn finally received his medals Saturday at a brief ceremony held by VFW Post 8566.

The medals and other military awards apparently got lost in the mail, Heckendorn said.

After his honorable discharge from the Army, officials told Heckendorn that his medals would be mailed to him, he said, but they never arrived — until now.

Heckendorn said he wrote to United States Sen. Phil Gramm in 1998 at the urging of his wife and daughter.

Gramm helped secure the medals for him, and they arrived in June, Heckendorn said.

Heckendorn served in the 36 Infantry Division from January 1941 through January 1945.

The division, originally made up entirely of Texans, landed first in North Africa and made the initial landing in Italy.

The division spent 341 days in Italy in 1943, finally pushing enemy lines northwest past Naples. Later, the division broke through enemy lines.

A single company of the 36th still exists today as a Texas Army National Guard unit, headquartered at Ellington Field near Friendswood.

[Some of the medals and military awards received by John Heckendorn:

* Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster

* Bronze Star

* American Defense Medal

* Army Good Conduct Medal

* European African Middle East Campaign Ribbon

* WWII Victory Medal

* Honorable Service lapel button

* Combat Infantry Badge

* Presidential Unit Citation]

I believe America has room for people willing to come here and work, and I strongly support the reunification of families caught in the immigration bureaucracy. It is important for every person in America, whether a citizen or not, to have due process and equal justice under the law.

“That is why in the 106th Congress I supported the Legal Immigration Family Equity Act (LIFE) Act and why I look forward to supporting its successor in the 107th Congress. This legislation was written expressly for the purpose of giving people an opportunity to unite their families, particularly those immigrants who feel that they did not receive fair treatment and a day in court when the 1986 immigration act was applied to their cases.

“Briefly, the LIFE Act would restore due process by providing relief to those immigrants wrongly denied adjustment of status because of INS administrative errors. The Act proposes that the ‘late amnesty class’ of 1982 may pursue their legalization claims under the original terms of the 1986 Act. The Act will provide relief to about 400,000 immigrants in the 1982 class who played by the rules, but who were wrongly denied adjustment of status.

“The Act also furthers the legitimate objective of family reunification for those applicants who have played by the rules. We accomplish this by providing interim relief for as many as half of those immigrant visa applicants on waiting lists through the establishment of a new form of visitor visa for Family Second 2A (spouses and children of lawful permanent residents) applicants. Eligible applicants would be permitted to reunite with their families, live with them in America, and work legally while awaiting a decision on the merits of their petitions. These are individuals who will likely be entitled to enter eventually, but are currently waiting to be with their spouses and parents or are here awaiting approval and unable to adjust status, due to existing caps on legal immigration.

“I am a strong supporter of immigration. I am proud that my grandfather came to this country immediately before the turn of the 20th century. I am proud that my wife’s grandfather came to America as an indentured laborer to work in the sugar cane fields in Hawaii. In fact, this summer, I had the very happy experience of our family donating to the Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio a photograph of my wife’s grandmother that was a picture in a picture-book that men went through to pick out what was called a picture-book bride’ to send for her to come to America. This pioneer came to America to marry a man she had never met in a strange country whose language she did not speak; she came seeking opportunity and freedom, and found both.

“That is a story of America in action. Her granddaughter, under Presidents Reagan and Bush, became Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, where she oversaw the trading of all futures, including futures on the same cane sugar that her grandfather came to America to cut by hand.

“America is not full. There is still room among us for people who come and bring new genius and new energy and new creativity. I support the LIFE Act because it provides a guarantee of fair treatment and equal justice, and it strengthens the family.”

“On behalf of the Federation’s nearly 1,700 member hospitals and health systems around the country, I would like to thank you for your year-long efforts in securing passage of H.R. 4577 for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, as well as their healthcare providers.”

I don’t know that anybody ever intended that American tax law penalize working people who get married. But today, when two people, both of whom work outside their home, meet, fall in love, get married, and pay their taxes, they pay, on average, $1,400 a year for the right to be married. I can say, without any reservation, that my wife is worth $1,400 a year, and a bargain at that. But I believe she ought to get the money, and not bureaucrats in Washington, DC.

“If you and your sweetheart each get a standard deduction of $4,400 and you fall in love and get married, your joint return standard deduction will be $7,350–obviously, much less than $8,800. Also what tends to happen is as singles, you and your sweetheart are in the 15-percent tax bracket, but when you get married, you end up in the 28-percent tax bracket.

“We want to repeal the marriage penalty. Our reform says, whereas single people get a $4,400 standard deduction, we will give a married couple $8,800. We want to change the tax brackets so that if, for instance, two people get married who are in the 15-percent tax bracket as singles, they will still be in the 15-percent tax bracket after they get married.

“Those who are opposed to repealing the marriage penalty believe they can spend this money better than families. They believe if we repeal the marriage penalty and working couples get to keep $1,400 a year more of their own income to invest in their own family, in their own future, and in their own children, that those families will do a poorer job with that money than the government.

“The President says he wants to get rid of the marriage penalty but he doesn’t want to do it for rich people. Under his plan, for a couple filing a tax return, they move into the 28-percent tax bracket at a combined income of $43,850. If you want to know whether you are rich or not by the definition of our President, if you make $21,925 a year and your wife makes $21,925, according to Bill Clinton, you are rich.

“If two people are poor and meet and fall in love, I want them to get married. If two people are rich and they meet and they fall in love and they want to get married, I don’t want the tax code to discourage them from getting married. This is a question of right and wrong. It is not a question of rich and poor.

“I want to repeal the marriage penalty for everybody. The plain truth is the bulk of the cost of the marriage penalty rests with middle-income people.

“Last week, we repealed the death tax, and tonight or tomorrow morning we will repeal the marriage penalty tax. This represents the best two weeks that American families have had in a very long time. These are good policies. They are good because they are right. They are good because they are pro-family. They are good because they recognize that families can spend money better than government can. They are good because they represent the triumph of the individual and the family over the government.

“I am against the death tax because I don’t think death ought to be a taxable event. And I am against the marriage penalty because I am for love and I am for marriage and I don’t want to tax it. And neither do the American people.”

Perhaps the best approach to the latter front is to first target the populations that most need attention. Texas Sen. Phil Gramm suggests offering drug benefits to seniors whose income falls below 200 percent of the poverty line.

“They would need to make some kind of co-payment for the drugs they receive, but at least that way the benefit would target more needy retirees.