1) Double Tax On Dividends, 2) Tax On Social Security Benefits, 3) Tax On Telephones Imposed To Finance The Spanish-American War, 4) Death Tax Imposed To Finance WWI

Statement By James L. Martin, President Of The 60 Plus Association

April 15, 2003, National Press Club– “In a city where con-jobs are a daily ritual, the mother of all con-jobs is that abolishing the Death Tax is, in the words of former President Clinton, ‘a windfall for the wealthy,’ or in the equally slick words of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), ‘we’re not in the business of bailing out billionaires.’

Both of their press secretaries deserve a pat on the back for their alliterative enhancement of this old canard. That horse is dead. Dismount.

Surely they know the wealthy don’t pay the tax. They, the Bill Gateses, Warren Buffetts, Ted Turners, the Oprah Winfreys, set up trusts and foundations and who can blame them?

Instead, it’s small businesses, farmers, those who have all their assets tied up in land and equipment who must face the undertaker and the tax collector when a principal owner passes away.

Public opinion polls, by a wide 75-25 margin, call the death tax ‘unfair.’ There are many unfair taxes affecting seniors; 1) double tax on dividends, checks seniors depend on in retirement, 2) tax on Social Security benefits, after paying in for 45 years, 3) telephone tax, imposed to finance the Spanish-American war. My 103-year-old stepfather has been paying that sucker for 82 years even though the war has been over since he was born in 1899.

The death tax has been imposed three other times in our history to raise revenues in time of war. It was enacted a fourth time in WWI, but like so many taxes in this town, it somehow became permanent.

The Death tax, the Grim Reaper’s tax, the Grave Robber’s tax, the Departure tax, the Exit tax, the Last Grasp tax, the Stiffest tax of all… no matter its name… let’s kill it, not wound it by tinkering with it by raising the exemption. All you’re doing is making work for lawyers, accountants, and especially insurance salesmen.

Let’s bury the death tax–put it in its resting place– a fourth and final time.

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