Saturday, July 29, 2006

Inheritance Tax and the Minimum Wage

I don't like paying taxes, but I do understand their importance - it's kind of what keeps the government running (absurdly as it does, but still). Now on the other hand, I've never understood the notion of the death tax (or "inheritance tax", if you will): that money was already taxed during the person's life, so what right can the government possibly claim to be stealing from it again? They have absolutely no right nor excuse for such a preposterous behavior, and yet it still continues. Which is why I am (as of now, at least) in full support of the recent bill passed by the House Republicans. To be clear, it's not that I'm saying legislation should be aimed at "helping the rich", but a pure stance of equality dictates that it is just wrong for the government to take up to 55% of a person's estate away from the rightful heirs, plain and simple. The proposed legislation doesn't completely fix this problem, but it's another good step in the right direction.

Now of course the only way they got the bill passed was by coupling it with a raise to the minimum wage, but that's fine, because that's also a move in the right direction. And really, from the company perspective, it only adds $4200 in cost per year per employee, which isn't much. But on the employee side, this adds almost half again their wage to their yearly salary, from $10300 to $14500, which is a huge benefit.

Ah, brilliant. Congress working for the people's interests for once. I know it won't last, but it's so nice when they're actually doing their job and working for the people instead of for themselves!

(The opinions are my own, but the core information came from http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/28/minimumwage.ap/index.html)

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