Time of death: January 1, 2010, 12:01 am

Posted by Marc Hodak on December 31, 2009 under Politics, Unintended consequences | 3 Comments to Read

That’s what a statistically improbable number of death certificates are likely to read due to our tax law.  No one will be able to prove which of the death certificates were fudged, or which doctors might have been fogging up the mirror for their patients until the magic hour struck.  But there is no question about how powerful the incentives will be for perhaps dozens of would-be beneficiaries of congressional ineptitude.

Congress has allowed the estate tax to be completely repealed.  Over 90 percent of Congress did not want this result.  Virtually none of the Democrats wanted the wealthy to have any shot at keeping all their money in the family.  The mere thought makes your fainting liberal…well, faint.  Even a majority of Republicans were willing to keep an estate tax around, as long as it was something less than confiscatory.  And it’s not like Congress didn’t have plenty of warning to do something about it.  Like 10 years.  This is the kind of failure that in the private sector would have gotten someone fired, for sure.  The congressmen involved will most likely be reelected.

But Congress will not simply recognize its incompetence and let the law be the law.  It’s not:  “Hey, we screwed up on the estate tax.  We guess we’ll have to figure out how to fix the mess we created later.”  No.  They are doubling down on their fecklessness by threatening to make their “fix” retroactive, making the mess even messier.

That’s right.  Congress is telling law-abiding taxpayers with a straight face, “Sure, the law says that your estates will be exempt from tax in 2010.  And we know that you selfish slobs will plan accordingly in order to deprive us of your hard-earned cash to the extent allowed by the law, you unpatriotic wretches.  But don’t spend too much on that party, fair shitizens.  When we’ve fixed the law to our satisfaction on our unhurried timetable, we will reach back into the past to take your money away.  Don’t like it?  Tell it to the justices.”

That’s the way I’m hearing it.  How about you?