Political Purpose
“The proposal would take a large step toward leveling the playing field between income from inherited wealth and income from work,” Batchelder wrote. It also serves a political purpose, by replacing a tax that Republicans frequently characterize as a “death tax” that ends up double-taxing the wealthy.
“It’s bad enough that you have to die. You shouldn’t be fined for doing so,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Bloomberg Television in late 2017, as the GOP was poised to enact a law that doubled the estate-tax exemption.
Democrats, hoping to regain the White House and Senate in this year’s elections, are hunting for ideas on how to raise extra revenue for progressive priorities and to reduce a decades-long widening in wealth inequality.
On Tuesday in Washington, Brookings is holding a forum titled “Tackling the Tax Code: Efficient and Equitable Ways to Raise Revenue” to discuss possibilities. One panel will feature three Treasury secretaries who served under Democrats: Timothy Geithner, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.
Batchelder’s proposed inheritance tax is part of a book released Tuesday by Brookings’ Hamilton Project. The volume includes other proposals to boost corporate taxes, impose a new financial-transaction tax and more efficiently administer the wealth tax proposed by Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.