While Washington debates whether to raise taxes on incomes and dividends next year, another huge tax increase looms as an even grimmer reaper: The death tax, which is currently zero, but will return to a rate of 55% next year if Congress fails to act.

Some Democrats don't want to stop there. The Senate Redistribution Caucus—Bernie Sanders (Vermont), Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island), Al Franken (Minnesota), Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Tom Harkin (Iowa)—are sponsoring the Responsible Death Tax Act to take the federal rate to 65% on large estates. Why stop at two-thirds, guys? Clearly, you think the government has a right to every penny a man makes in a lifetime.

These same five plus Budget Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota also want to retroactively apply a death tax to January 1, 2010 on the estates of those who have already died this year. Their revenue grab gives new meaning to the phrase grave robbers. Too bad George Steinbrenner, who died earlier this year and whose family will be able to retain control of the New York Yankees in part because of the lack of an estate tax, can't come back from the dead and shout at these guys.

It's not merely the super-wealthy who will pay these rates unless they shelter their assets in foundations the way that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have. Estates with as little as $1 million in assets would get hit at the reinstated 55% rate. That $1 million has not been indexed for inflation, so each year more and more middle class families would pay when mom or dad dies. For hundreds of thousands of families, $1 million can easily be the value of the family home, furniture, jewelry, cars, plus a 401(k). All of this would be fair game for IRS confiscation.

The ability to transmit wealth from one generation to the next is a core motivation for Americans to save, reinvest in the family business or accumulate wealth. A 1980 study co-authored by White House economic adviser Larry Summers on savings and capital accumulation in the first three-quarters of the 20th century found exactly that: Americans continue to save even as they get older so they can pass their lifetime legacies on to their kids. But if you can't take it with you, and you can't leave your lifetime earnings to your children or grandchildren, the motivation is to spend down wealth to zero at the time of death.

As for breaking up billion-dollar empires of wealth, this tax doesn't even achieve that. A 2010 report by the American Family Business Institute found that the estate tax has the effect of consolidating wealth because so many owners must sell in short order at time of death to pay taxes. The study found that every 4.5 percentage point increase in the estate tax "results in an additional 6,000 small firms being eliminated or absorbed by large firms each year."

Former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin found in a study released last week that raising the death tax rate to 55% will mean a permanent loss of 1.4 million jobs because the tax "lowers capital, savings, and long-term growth." Call it an antistimulus.

Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona and Democrat Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas have proposed a 35% estate tax with a $5 million exemption. A majority in the House and Senate would almost surely opt for that compromise, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won't allow a vote. Last week, Mr. Reid blocked a vote on the Kyl-Lincoln compromise as an amendment to the Democrats' small business bill.

This is one more example of the way the current Democratic majorities put their wealth-spreading agenda above wealth creation, or even economic common sense. If it moves, they tax it. If it stops moving, they tax it more.

If such a plan goes through, then obviously, if you are wealthy, one should transfer all their wealth outside the country and revoke anything that might tie you or your children to american estate rules before you die, so your children can receive the full benefit of the hard work you performed.

How on earth does one consider keeping your own money a government entitlement?

Your relatives earned that money, you didn't.

not a government entitlement--

why does it matter who gives you a handout? Is it any less a handout?
Your relatives earned that money, you didn't.


(Just fyi, playing devil's advocate here, I'm not really sure where I come down on this debate)

So entitlements are ok as long as its your dead relatives who entitle you?
...why does it matter who gives you a handout? Is it any less a handout?
Your relatives earned that money, you didn't.

Do the dead have rights then? Or do rights cease when life functions cease?

We have SOME assumption that rights continue after death (Copyright law comes to mind IIRC) but aren't corpses considered property? A corpse doesn't have standing do they?

As for RD's argument, 45% control over previous assets is still greater than any other single entitity has (I really don't see 'the government' as a single entity, remember the government is, in theory, of the people)

Ladas, how does the argument not make sense? You may not agree with the conclusion it leads to, but the basic premise --that person A gets something that Person B doesn't simply because of an accident of birth, is one you would hold to.

If I happened to be born to a particular ethnic group am I more deserving than some other. I have no role in chosing my parents.

Why am I entitled to their weath after their passing?

Ladas, how does the argument not make sense? You may not agree with the conclusion it leads to, but the basic premise --that person A gets something that Person B doesn't simply because of an accident of birth, is one you would hold to.

If I happened to be born to a particular ethnic group am I more deserving than some other. I have no role in chosing my parents. Why am I entitled to their weath after their passing?

Do the dead have rights then? Or do rights cease when life functions cease?

If I happened to be born to a particular ethnic group am I more deserving than some other. I have no role in chosing my parents. Why am I entitled to their weath after their passing?

Rifles, lots of them.

This gave me the wonderful mental image of Elmo's estate consisting of an armory sizeable enough to allow a handful of towns to successfully declare and defend their independence, left to his community.

Rifles, lots of them.

I have both a new goal and life and a reason to contact my attorney.