by Marc Phillippe Babineau

Created on: August 07, 2008

The estate law, in all of its' tax-grab glory, is a hit against a grieving person at one of the lowest points of their personal lives. When your parents are killed in a car crash by a drunk driver, after babysitting for you while you went out to a rare dinner together, the last thing that you should have to worry about is how much does Uncle Sam get. We all understand that it costs a lot of money to build, maintain, govern and protect a country, but there are other ways to make that money than hitting people when they are down. Should the Estate tax be abolished? It should be stored in a box and hidden in Area 51.

To think that, legally, if you forgot to claim that $5,000 that your grandmother left you in her will, you could be penalised financially, and jailed in a federal prison. On the lower levels of financial inheritance, the government normally lets it go, after completing a complete audit, taking names and kicking donkeys. Getting rid of the estate tax would not only be good for the grieving, and the voters that would see, for a split second, that the government just might have a heart. The truth, of course, is in the pudding. Whether it turns out to be just another election-timed promise that gets lost within short time of the swearing-in ceremony, or a bona-fide bone for the public, who seem to be losing a lot of their loved ones lately.

They always said that there were only two things that were guaranteed in life; death and taxes. What they didn't tell you was that they were going to tax you on the death part, as well as the taxes. That's right, in a country where we pay taxes on taxed taxes, paying taxes on our loved one's estimated net worth seems almost plausible. In Canada, you only have to pay taxes on large financial inheritances, not physical objects, like cars and cottages. The government understands that they will still be getting the land taxes, and all other costs associated with owning a cottage, so they do not see the need to charge us the taxes on the estimated value of the cottage. If the American government were at least to take a look at what they are doing, and perhaps soften up the estate taxes, that might be enough to placate a furious electorate that is fed up with paying over half of their income in taxes.

And the final nail is driven home when people do not have enough money to pay the estate taxes. They are then forced to either sell, auction off, or have the government auction off for them the belongings that were just inherited, at current appraisal rates (and guess who has to pay for the appraisals, too!). Inheritance is supposed to be a given right of succession; when your parents die, you take over the family business, the family farm. But you should not have to pay taxes on those inheritances, especially in your time of grief. Honour the wills, honour the people and they just might honour you.

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