Ohio's estate tax didn't kick in until ~$300,000 of taxable estate value, and was only ~7% on the dollars above the threshold. The Federal exemption has been in the millions this entire century (for all years that the estate tax existed that is. God bless the Steinbrenners). I'd love for you to cite a year and a location where this $30,000 working class estate would have been taxed.

I never said that $30,000 would have been taxed (please re-read my comment above), and they did not live in Ohio. Other states have far more stringent death and/or inheritance taxes. For instance, the trigger for Kentucky's inheritance tax is $500 for unrelated and unlimited to related persons. This editorial comment by IBD sums my position:

 

"People should not be punished because they work hard, become successful and want to pass on the fruits of their labor, or even their ancestors' labor, to their children. As has been said, families shouldn't be required to visit the undertaker and the tax collector on the same day."

"People should not be punished because they work hard, become successful and want to pass on the fruits of their labor, or even their ancestors' labor, to their children. As has been said, families shouldn't be required to visit the undertaker and the tax collector on the same day."

 

In a society that espouses meritocracy, emphasizes personal responsibility, blames the poor for being poor and exalts the rich for having earned it, we cannot allow so much wealth to change hands through right of birth, without regard to individual merit or effort, according to values best described as medieval.

Those are decisions best left to families and wills, not government death taxes. For instance, Bill Gates is incredibly wealthy but has left very little for his offspring, expecting them to work for their buck. Other families, not so much, and those cases have been more documented than the former. Why are we so certain that government knows whats best to do with money reaped from death taxes (not necessarily Ohio)?

Sherman, you seem to contradict yourself. You do not like Ohio's school funding formula because it is largely-based on local levies and thus poorer areas may have less funding. At the same time, you are against the local government fund which collected funds at the state level and then spread them to all communities, stabilizing local governments in poorer areas.

Those are decisions best left to families and wills, not government death taxes. For instance, Bill Gates is incredibly wealthy but has left very little for his offspring, expecting them to work for their buck. Other families, not so much, and those cases have been more documented than the former. Why are we so certain that government knows whats best to do with money reaped from death taxes (not necessarily Ohio)?

 

For the same reason that the same government enforces strict meritocracy on people who don't have rich relatives.  If you didn't earn this food, this home, this education, you have no inherent right to it (poor folks only).  The government enforces that principle with brute force and I suspect you support it in doing do.

I understand wanting to minimize taxation (and government) generally, but I really don't get the argument that earned money should be taxed more heavily than inherited money.

 

[typo]

Those are decisions best left to families and wills, not government death taxes. For instance, Bill Gates is incredibly wealthy but has left very little for his offspring, expecting them to work for their buck. Other families, not so much, and those cases have been more documented than the former. Why are we so certain that government knows whats best to do with money reaped from death taxes (not necessarily Ohio)?

 

For the same reason that the same government enforces strict meritocracy on people who don't have rich relatives.  If you didn't earn this food, this home, this education, you have no inherent right to it (poor folks only).  The government enforces that principle with brute force and I suspect you support it in doing do.

 

Tax dollars support food stamps, public housing and education. So whether or not those things are inherent rights or not is not even relevant when support of those things is completely mandatory.

 

 

An inheritance tax on cash and income-generating real estate and securities is critical to preventing the formation of a multigenerational aristocracy.  England finally got out from under the control of theirs in the early 1900s, with the final blow being the bulldozing of hundreds of country mansions in the 1950s.  Up until 1900, 90% of England's land was owned by just 10,000 families, and almost all of that had been in their respective families for 500-1,000 years. 

 

Today, people in the United States are handed vast fortunes they did nothing to earn.  Less in fact than someone who spends $2 on a Powerball ticket.  A Powerball jackpot winner is taxed at upwards of 50%.  Meanwhile, the Walton kids paid no tax in the inheritance of 80% of Wal-Mart because daddy transferred ownership to them before they were 18.  They're now the wealthiest family in the world, and none have had to work a day in their lives.  They have a small army of accountants working above a bicycle shop in Bentonville, AK tasked primarily with avoiding taxes.

 

Sherman, you seem to contradict yourself. You do not like Ohio's school funding formula because it is largely-based on local levies and thus poorer areas may have less funding. At the same time, you are against the local government fund which collected funds at the state level and then spread them to all communities, stabilizing local governments in poorer areas.

 

I didn't like the old school funding formula, which may have been changed since the Dispatch's damning report that came out years ago. This was around the time that the Portsmouth city schools were being rebuilt (on Scioto?). In Ohio, schools are/were funded by a specific SDIT (income tax) and a death tax. Of the school districts, 191 or so have SDIT's as what is essentially supplemental income to the death tax. Other states have a SDIT as their only legal funding source; in Ohio, they must be levied, which is why not all districts have one. By having a specific and reliable funding source that remains constant year after year, you remove the variances between schools and all are subject to an equal playing field (among other things). And you remove the need for levies that must be voted upon - and which become battlegrounds in some areas (like the Lakota example).

 

But I'm not a fan of the death tax in general - and that local governments shouldn't have been dependent on it. Much like how I've been opposed to the inefficiencies of townships/counties/cities/state (whereas plenty of other states make out just fine with counties/cities/state), there were inefficiencies with how the death taxes were distributed by local municipalities/townships. Other states with far smaller death taxes make out just fine; I'm sure Ohio can manage just as well once the breakup period ends. Here is how it breaks down for Ohio:

 

• Estates with dates of death prior to June 30, 1983: 50% to the municipal corporation or township of origin; 50%, less cost of local administration, to the state General Revenue Fund.

• Estates with dates of death between July 1, 1983 to December 31, 2000: 64% to the municipal corporation or township of origin; 36%, less cost of local administration, to the state General Revenue Fund.

• Estates with dates of death on or after January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2001: 70% to the municipal corporation or township of origin; 30%, less cost of local administration, to the state General Revenue Fund.

• Estates with dates of death on or after January 1, 2002: 80% to the municipal corporation or township of origin; 20%, less cost of local administration, to the state General Revenue Fund.

 

You can be both against the death tax and for improving schools; it doesn't have to be an either/or situation. The two are not related to each other anyways; the death tax wasn't even directed at schools but to the municipality/township and to the state, and not to any specific school or schools in general. How the municipality/township and state delegate that out doesn't matter in the case of removing the death tax.

You aren't taxed for dying, you're taxed (or should be taxed) for inheriting $100 million.  It's a windfall tax. 

 

And public schools should be funded by the federal government, not localities.   

I guess it's a difference in opinion; some states have an inheritance tax, others have an estate tax, and a few have both. Not all are pegged at absurdly high income levels like $100 million; some, like Kentucky, can be as low as just $500.

 

--

 

On a more related note, Kasich and Sanders won the Dixville Notch (http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/09/politics/dixville-notch-new-hampshire-primary-midnight-vote/index.html).

Well if you want to build a time machine and go back to being a peasant in England or France circa 1650, toiling away every day of your life for some family that inherited the land 500 years earlier, go for it.  Or just keep voting for tea partiers and see how life looks in the United States in 50 years.  No middle class and 300 million peasants toiling endlessly for 30 million people who never have to work. 

I'm not sure there is a good correlation between sons and daughters inheriting land (and maintaining a significant land ownership over the entire country) and money based on centuries old systems that had become far antiquated versus the complicated and varied system in the states.

 

So I decided to look up the positions on my two candidates that I have winning (Kasich and Sanders). Sanders calls for a 65% estate tax rate. Kasich eliminated it for the state of Ohio (I thought he kept a reformed version of it).

They have a small army of accountants working above a bicycle shop in Bentonville, AK tasked primarily with avoiding taxes.

 

The point of EVERY company's accounting and bookkeeping practices is to avoid or minimize the company's tax burden

They have a small army of accountants working above a bicycle shop in Bentonville, AK tasked primarily with avoiding taxes.

 

The point of EVERY company's accounting and bookkeeping practices is to avoid or minimize the company's tax burden

 

The Walton heirs are not a company, they are people who never had to work who continue to earn tens of millions each year in dividend income off of minimum-wage workers. 

 

They have a small army of accountants working above a bicycle shop in Bentonville, AK tasked primarily with avoiding taxes.

 

The point of EVERY company's accounting and bookkeeping practices is to avoid or minimize the company's tax burden

 

It's pretty much a fiduciary duty for a publicly held company.

 

It's accountants and tax attorneys that would object to this changing, moreso than "wealthy" stockholders.

Kind of jmecklenborg[/member]. They (and even the late Sam Walton) donate to their namesake foundation. The foundation then channels 99% of the funds into 21 or so Charitable Lead Annuity Trusts, which helps the Waltons avoid estate and gift taxes.

 

I would add onto Mr Sparkle[/member] 's comment in that every family's accounting practices is to avoid or minimize the personal or family tax burden. Why pay more in taxes? And why overpay and expect a refund? Unless you are incorrectly doing taxes, you should be receiving little to nothing in a return (absent certain circumstances). I've minimized my refund to under $100 most years by doing my own taxes and keeping my personal books clean. When I had my LLC, I kept my books clean through Blue Accounting who helped me tremendously with paying as little in taxes as possible. That's really their main function.

Sherman, I looked up Kentucky's inheritance taxes:

http://revenue.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/6D844DC9-B300-4EE7-963E-DB141FC0AED6/0/guide_2012.pdf

 

There is no estate tax in Kentucky as of 2005 and direct relatives of the deceased (spouse, children, brother, sister, etc.) pay no inheritance tax.  According to this document, the only people who pay inheritance tax in Kentucky are more distant relatives (although no clarification is given if your cousin is your spouse) or unrelated people named in the will. 

 

So this BS about a family's fallow 200-acre farm getting carved up to pay the tax appear to be completely false. 

As an aside, a woman I do some freelance work for inherited $2 million last year from a first cousin.  That cousin died at about age 50, a year or two after his wife died.  His wife had inherited the money from her family and willed it to her husband.  They had no kids and he only had one living relative who he kept in regular contact with, so he willed it all to her. 

 

I share this anecdote as an example of how capricious inheritances so often are.  In some cases money literally falls out of the sky.  It is in effect the same as lottery winnings, and as such, should be similarly taxed.  But it's not the $20,000 or $200,000 or $2 million inheritances that are threats to our country, it's the $100+ million or even multi-billion inheritances that enable individuals (or brothers, as in the Koch Bros.) to wield enormous influence over national affairs.  These people literally have the power to start wars. 

They have a small army of accountants working above a bicycle shop in Bentonville, AK tasked primarily with avoiding taxes.

 

The point of EVERY company's accounting and bookkeeping practices is to avoid or minimize the company's tax burden

 

The Walton heirs are not a company, they are people who never had to work who continue to earn tens of millions each year in dividend income off of minimum-wage workers. 

 

 

Ok, the point of all ESTATE planning is to avoid or minimize the individual's tax burden

joint-surviorship bank accounts between the elderly and their heirs

joint-surviorship bank accounts between the elderly and their heirs

Yeah, OK, JRTS are just one tool for Estate planning. There are many others and people need help navigating them all...

 

BTW the original response was to jmecklenborg[/member] 's surprise about the Walton's a small army of accountants working above a bicycle shop in Bentonville, AK tasked primarily with avoiding taxes.

 

---surprised that they can even fit above a bicycle shop

 

 

Here is a link that describes the obscure location of their office:

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/retail/20130914-how-wal-marts-waltons-keep-the-tax-man-at-bay.ece

 

 

"Guarding the Waltons’ wealth is the task of a handful of staffers laboring in an unmarked suite in Bentonville, above a bike shop called Phat Tire. Walton Enterprises LLC manages the world’s biggest fortune in a nondescript office that even employees of the coffee shop next door have never heard of."

I found this comment about Kasich to be pretty spot on (regardless of political affiliation):

 

"Kasich’s the one scoop of (really, really) vanilla ice cream to the rest of the Republican field’s wacky banana splits. And you know what? Some people like vanilla ice cream! It’s refreshing in its simplicity; its even-keeled subtlety speaks volumes and hardens you back to ice cream memories past; it’s not constantly telling you that Mexican ice cream vendors are rapists. Vanilla ice cream is consistent, reliable, and gets the job done. Just don’t eat too much of it. Like the other flavors, too much vanilla ice cream will give you a bad case of the shits."

Kasich did not 'go after' public sector unions. SB5 was not a Kasich driven measure. He merely signed the bill which had been drafted and championed by an influential group of southern republicans in the GA. It was well in the works before Kasich took office and, in fact, his team essentially redrafted it to blunt a good chunk of the blow it would have had.

 

I was always convinced that he was behind the proposal, but maybe this is why I got that impression.

 

Regardless, I have to admit that I was wrong about his tactics during this Presidential run. I thought he would need to go batcrap conservative crazy to be competitive, but he sounds like the only adult on the stage during debates. That's admirable, but that SB5 thing, whether it was his idea or not, has permanently alienated me from him. He got my vote in 2010, but I'll never vote for him again.

An inheritance tax on cash and income-generating real estate and securities is critical to preventing the formation of a multigenerational aristocracy.  England finally got out from under the control of theirs in the early 1900s, with the final blow being the bulldozing of hundreds of country mansions in the 1950s.  Up until 1900, 90% of England's land was owned by just 10,000 families, and almost all of that had been in their respective families for 500-1,000 years. 

 

Today, people in the United States are handed vast fortunes they did nothing to earn.  Less in fact than someone who spends $2 on a Powerball ticket.  A Powerball jackpot winner is taxed at upwards of 50%.  Meanwhile, the Walton kids paid no tax in the inheritance of 80% of Wal-Mart because daddy transferred ownership to them before they were 18.  They're now the wealthiest family in the world, and none have had to work a day in their lives.  They have a small army of accountants working above a bicycle shop in Bentonville, AK tasked primarily with avoiding taxes.

 

And even worse, they are using large chunks of that fortune to actively protect their wealth, enrich themselves further, and destroy the middle class through influencing public policy.

Some good coverage by the Plain Dealer of the reduction in state money going to local governments under Kasich: http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2016/03/ohio_tax_changes_under_gov_joh.html#incart_2box

 

There's a very real policy discussion about devolving revenue generation to local governments, so I don't mean to presume it's bad (though I tend to think it is, due to wide wealth disparities from jurisdiction to jurisdiction). But at the very least, this really highlights how a significant portion of Kasich's fiscal record is really based on cramming costs downward, not making "hard decisions" about state government or improving efficiency. This is nothing new--this issue has been discussed here before--but nice work by the PD to hang some real numbers on it and publicize it.

Gov. Kasich sat for a half-hour Statehouse interview with reporters from cleveland.com and the Columbus Dispatch – his first with Ohio media since suspending his presidential campaign on May 4:

 

-- As John Kasich reflects on his presidential bid, he worries about Donald Trump and a nation of victims:  http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2016/05/as_john_kasich_reflects_on_his.html

 

-- John Kasich has plans but not with Donald Trump:  http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/05/24/Kasich_interview_with_The_Dispatch.html

From The Dispatch on Wednesday: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/05/24/Kasich_interview_with_The_Dispatch.html

 

Kasich took daughter Reese and one of her friends to Rock on the Range on Friday.

 

“Maybe I’m getting older or something, but they were so loud,” Kasich said. But he praised the gathering, saying, “I think we have the No. 1 hard rock festival in the United States."

 

With 40,000 in attendance each night over the weekend, Kasich said organizers are seeking a larger venue, which could mean a move to Cleveland.

 

“Music festivals are like really in right now,” he said. “I don’t think people around here understand it. But frankly, people around here don’t understand the Columbus Crew.”

^Why would the need for a larger venue facilitate a move to Cleveland?  What does Cleveland have that Columbus doesn't?  Blossom?

You gotta watch where you have those nu-rock/nu-metal fests. Much of the rest of the country has abandoned that radio format completely. Ohio, Detroit and Pittsburgh are about it for that dead format. Yeah people still listen to the headliners from over the years such as RHCP, ZZ Top and Judas Priest, but it's those flattened-sounding other bands that make everyone else sit on their hands.

^Why would the need for a larger venue facilitate a move to Cleveland?  What does Cleveland have that Columbus doesn't?  Blossom?

 

It's not like there's a 100,000 seat stadium a couple miles away that hosts concerts in the summer.  Oh wait.  There is.

 

It seems like that was a dumb comment on top of piling on the citizens for not being proper futbol fans in the area.

You gotta watch where you have those nu-rock/nu-metal fests. Much of the rest of the country has abandoned that radio format completely. Ohio, Detroit and Pittsburgh are about it for that dead format. Yeah people still listen to the headliners from over the years such as RHCP, ZZ Top and Judas Priest, but it's those flattened-sounding other bands that make everyone else sit on their hands.

 

Where do you get this?  There are 129 active rock stations in all the top markets in the country. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Active_rock_radio_stations_in_the_United_States

 

There are countless other classic rock formats which are playing many of these artists. 

 

There are also dozens of other hugely successful festivals with the same acts (Carolina Rebellion, Northern Invasion, Rocklahoma, etc). 

 

Radio as a whole is dying off, and genres are being more and more segmented, but these festivals the the metal format are making a comeback. 

 

 

That's a very small number of stations as compared to say, the year 2000. Label people, bands and fans are constantly moaning about it.

 

All types of music festivals are on the upswing as people have cut back on seeing bands on a regular basis such as evenings.

Also the Wikipedia page states: "This page was last modified on 5 June 2011, at 08:49."

You gotta watch where you have those nu-rock/nu-metal fests. Much of the rest of the country has abandoned that radio format completely. Ohio, Detroit and Pittsburgh are about it for that dead format. Yeah people still listen to the headliners from over the years such as RHCP, ZZ Top and Judas Priest, but it's those flattened-sounding other bands that make everyone else sit on their hands.

 

Where do you get this?  There are 129 active rock stations in all the top markets in the country. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Active_rock_radio_stations_in_the_United_States

 

There are countless other classic rock formats which are playing many of these artists. 

 

There are also dozens of other hugely successful festivals with the same acts (Carolina Rebellion, Northern Invasion, Rocklahoma, etc). 

 

Radio as a whole is dying off, and genres are being more and more segmented, but these festivals the the metal format are making a comeback. 

 

 

 

Terrestrial radio is, and one of the people who is most outspoken on that subject is John Gorman.  Who oughta know.

 

It's simply a matter of how easy it is to find preferred alternatives.  Before the net, and specifically the portabilization of the net, one would settle for a station that played 75% one's ideal music.  Now it's easy to get closer to one's specific preferences.

Kasich doing some good for higher education in Ohio:

 

Kasich to Big 12: Let UC in

 

Kasich last month told Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby and each of the league's member presidents that UC would be an "outstanding choice to expand the conference's reach and nationwide appeal," according to a letter exclusively obtained by The Enquirer.

 

"I am convinced that the University of Cincinnati will be a strong, competitive addition to the Big 12 Conference and I fully support such a move," Kasich wrote in a July 12 letter.

 

Obviously, Kasich's plea fell on deaf ears with the Big 12 members, not unlike his vanity primary campaign outside of Ohio. He doesn't wield the political cachet or capital beyond this state that he has sought after. If he even wonders why, he might start by examining his own track record here.

 

More to the point, UC is stuck about a half-notch below what the Big 12 and ACC are looking for, but remains about a notch and a half above the MAC schools. It clearly doesn't want to go back to the MAC, so it is stuck trying to position itself for a future power five conference opening, while also now having to manage a hefty financial gambit it made when it invested in renovated athletic facilities that didn't yield an immediate payoff as hoped. Not an enviable position by any means.

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2016/12/john_kasich_warns_ohio_on_the.html

 

So Kasich touted Ohio's economic turnaround from 2008 as a strong point on the campaign trail...election is over and...whoops, we might be headed into a recession?  Thanks, John.

Remember, 2008 is Strickland's fault -- not Wall Street's lack of regulation and easy money for tract homebuilders.

You mean SoftBank isn't adding those 50K jobs in the Rust Belt??

You know, Kasich and I really got off on the wrong foot when he cancelled the 3C rail line, but since then I've believed him to be a competent and relatively honest politician who is willing to do what he thinks is right for the state.  But now he claims that we're on the verge of a recession based solely on a 3% decrease in projected tax revenue that was caused exclusively by his income tax and small business tax cuts?  This is typical starve the beast strategy.  Pass tax cuts promising increased revenue due to EXPLOSIVE economic growth then act shocked when the laws of mathematics don't bend to help support your political talking point.

 

Maybe Kasich could use the $2 billion he confiscated from local governments to cover this year's totally unexpected (:roll:) shortfall.  Just a thought.

 

http://statenews.org/post/kasich-warns-upcoming-recession-report-his-office-says-otherwise

His economic policy people suck at their jobs. Everything backfires.

Hopefully the electors will vote for him to the presidency. 

I actually think he would make a better President than Governor. He listens to his policy people no matter what they say. D.C. has much better policy people than Columbus. D.C. is the Policy Mecca.

Posting the reddit link, so feel free to read what 17 year old leftists feel about the issue :-) 

 

Governor Kasich signs bill blocking the people of Cleveland from voting on a $15 minimum wage

 

Good. It was already blocked at the state level so even if the measure did pass (which was highly unlikely), it wouldn't have been able to pass.

 

And if it was somehow able to be enacted with a $15 wage, what rationale would there be to a small business owner (or any business owner) that has minimum wage workers to keep their entity inside the city? Much like the ballyhooed minimum age (21) for cigarette purchase in the city of Cleveland, you can easily step over the border to any other city and find normalized regulations and laws.

 

I am a liberal Democrat with conservative fiscal leanings and this was pushed by the unions (SEIU), not by the workers. They used low-wage fast-food workers as pawns in a highly publicized campaign that had no chance of passing to fuel their own agenda.

Good. It was already blocked at the state level so even if the measure did pass (which was highly unlikely), it wouldn't have been able to pass.

 

And if it was somehow able to be enacted with a $15 wage, what rationale would there be to a small business owner (or any business owner) that has minimum wage workers to keep their entity inside the city? Much like the ballyhooed minimum age (21) for cigarette purchase in the city of Cleveland, you can easily step over the border to any other city and find normalized regulations and laws.

 

I am a liberal Democrat with conservative fiscal leanings and this was pushed by the unions (SEIU), not by the workers. They used low-wage fast-food workers as pawns in a highly publicized campaign that had no chance of passing to fuel their own agenda.

 

I would be really unsurprised to learn that it was backed by people owning suburban businesses immediately adjacent to the city limits.  Or agencies who could pay people in the suburbs that actually worked in Cleveland.

 

It was economic insanity, otherwise.

^A high majority of economists believe a $15.00 minimum wage would be bad for the economy, young workers, etc.  It is split at a lower rate like $10 or $10.50, with self identified Democrat economists favoring that much, while Republican and Independents favor the current $7.25

 

Link: https://www.epionline.org/studies/survey-of-us-economists-on-a-15-federal-minimum-wage/