Even if you or your family will never have to worry about the Estate Tax, why would anyone think it is fair?

Well, in 2010 that's the time to die I guess. No Estate Tax aka Death Tax on the Federal level in 2010. Frankly, let's call it what it truly is, a death tax, a tax for dying. The person who gained the wealth worked hard for it and was taxed heavily while living. Is it fair, even if they are spoiled heirs, to tax that hard earned money again? No way and anybody who believes that is a raging socialist. It's not fair one bit. Building wealth for your family should be encouraged in my opinion. I tell you, I can't believe some of the answers on here. And it's a apparent sign of who they are voting for as well.

Why is being rich and lazy acceptable if being poor and lazy isn't?

The argument against most taxation is that the taxed person earned their money through hard work. Inheriting 18 million dollars from your long lost Uncle Ernie isn't hard work.

I'm not talking about taxing away what a man leaves his family, I'm talking about making it more difficult for people to leave their great-great-great-great-grandchildren enough money so they don't have to work.

Estate or inheritance taxes force people to earn their own way and I just don't see a problem with that. The two richest men in the world, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, both agree that inheritance should be taxed.

Because when an estate moves from one person to another it becomes income for the second person.

When your boss makes a bundle he or she pays taxes on it and then pays your salary. You pay taxes on your salary. Same theory.

The fact that the first $3 million of an estate is not taxed is pretty good, under the circumstances.

It's perfectly fair and is meant as a way to keep an entrenched aristocracy of idle, idiot descendents of the rich from forming in the US. The founders were concerned about this.

There are also plenty of loopholes and ways to get around it that I assure you that any savvy rich person takes full advantage off. (trusts, gifts, life insurance etc)

This is another red herring thrown out by the GOP to get people to vote against their own best interests.

Just because is unfair to one person it is not unfair to the entire population. When you think of fairness you can't think just you but the entire population. Excess wealth is monopoly and is not fair neither is the lack of it so you need to create balance to keep opportunity alive and our society growing strong.

I don't see how it's fair at all.

Chelfi: That is not how it works. The boss gets revenues, then pays the employees, THEN gets taxed on what he has left. He only gets taxed on the profit, not the total revenue. So the boss' share gets taxed, and your salary gets taxed - but nothing gets taxed twice.