Taxes, Taxes And More Taxes

60 Plus Embraces RSC’s Taxpayer Bill Of Rights

Taxpayer Bill of Rights, Press Conference, 12N, Cannon Terrace

Washington, DC – The 60 Plus Association heartily endorses the Republican Study Committee’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

“I draw your attention specifically to the Committee’s manifesto that we’ve become accustomed to every form of taxation under the sun: water tax, gas tax, payroll tax, utility tax, cable tax, property tax and on and on and on. As the RSC puts it, we’re taxed from the moment we wake up with that first cup of coffee to the moment we turn out the lights to go to sleep. The RSC could have added that then when you go to sleep permanently, the Congressional coin collectors have figured out a unique way to tax you again after you’re buried, with the hideous death tax.

While I’ve been credited with popularizing the term death tax for the estate tax, to be accurate Ronald Reagan used the phrase in the 80’s.

To add to the liberal’s discomfort, 60 Plus started an annual contest to add new names to the death tax, and we’ve had contestants come up with some real zingers. Besides calling it the obvious, a cruel tax, an exit or departure tax, here are a few of the more than 40 entries: pine box tax, tombstone tax, the after life tax, the final insult tax, the long goodbye tax, the last grasp tax and, my favorite, the stiffest tax of all.

I’ve circulated a single sheet we at the 60 Plus Association call 10 REASONS TO GET RID OF THE DEATH TAX, excerpted from testimony I gave before a Congressional Committee some 10 years ago. It speaks volumes to why the death tax must go!

This confiscatory levy, repealed and reenacted three times has been with us this fourth time since 1916. In my 40-plus years in this town, I’ve seen a lot of taxes come but not many go. The time for this tax to go has come. We will repeal!”

-30-