Nothing illustrates the collective confusion among American voters quite like the estate tax. Polls have consistently found wide support for the tax’s elimination but, at the same time, many of those same supporters of repeal also believe that the rich should pay more in taxes. So what gives? Perhaps many are ill informed about the reach of death imposts. After all, it is a tax that overwhelmingly effects the top %1 of wage earners, due to an exclusion exceeding $5 million, but is often portrayed as the bogeyman of the small business owner and a destroyer of desperately needed jobs. On the other hand, many might think it is unfair that money already earned, and presumably taxed, should face a second round with the taxman. But whatever the reason there is a clear conflict between what the people want and what they, well… want. In any event, as the election season heats up and the differences between candidates becomes ever clearer voters are going to have work through their cognitive dissonance and chose between their contradictory impulses. To tax or not to tax, that is the question. Just depends on who you ask.
See Ashlea Ebeling, Gallup: Most Americans Side With Trump, Cruz To Ditch The Estate Tax, Forbes, March 18, 2016.
Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.
