The death tax punishes virtue and rewards vice. It very powerfully tells older Americans, "You can't take it with you, and you can't leave it to your children", encouraging lavish overconsumption and discouraging the traditional American virtues of thrift and intergenerational savings. It discourages class mobility by making it impossible for many Americans to leave their businesses and farms to children and grandchildren, building wealth across generations.
The Founders considered seizing estates at death so outrageous that they included a clause in the U.S. Constitution that forbids it as a punishment for treason; it is time to stop taxing estates as a punishment for achieving the American Dream.
- PHILIP G. KERPEN, Free Enterprise Fund,
New York Sun
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