...or just hand your heirs shoeboxes full of cash. No taxes on what the IRS doesn't know about....

"The person who spent his life pursuing financial success--at times at the expense of his family" should be aware of the great potential for anxiety and regret, along with his or her great sacrifices. As for me, I'd rather not deal with the burdens of wealth and fame. Data shows that the poorer households are among the more generous. It is harder to be generous when you are obsessed with holding onto what you've amassed. Still there are some remarkably generous people with wealth. I'd rather not have the government dictating how enormous sums of peoples' money are spent, however. But thanks to big government spending, we're all going to be paying a very heavy price, whatever our income.

This quote, "Once people have met their basic needs, said Tiemstra, "equality is at least as important as prosperity." just shows how this person thinks. Why should you work hard just so someone else doesn't have to? Your assets are yours and you should be able to do what you want with them. Now, if you donated 55% of your assets to a church or charity, and the other 45% was not taxed (regardless of the size of the portfolio; ie above 3.5 mil) then i would support it. I just think that charities and private citizens can put assets to work much better and more efficiently than the government.

Our family has experienced one setback after another. We are always broke and in debt, not because of overspending or charging things on credit cards. We don't. Our problems are based on misfortunes, medical and others. Yet, the Lord is our Helper and He knows exactly what we need and will supply in His perfect time. God is always sufficient. I said all that to say this - regardless of how broke or in debt we are, it is still categorically wrong to take from the rich or well off to pay or bail out anyone else. Leave them alone. If God is ready to supply our need, He, and He alone will lay it upon the heart of those more fortunate them ourselves to help us. If our needs are not being met, we need to turn to God and His word and see where we are wrong. It most likely is personal sin, especially the kind that no one else knows about. Let's get back to our Bible first and our Constitution second, and let it stop right there. Anything above that is out and out theft by the government.

Years ago a million dollars was a lot of money, but now it is almost as much as a house and a small business. So if a parent wants his sole child to get the Family house and business, too bad. And even dividing up an estate between several children doesn’t help since the tax is on the whole estate, not what each child gets. Yet the super rich, can escape these taxes. They setup trusts that put their wealth into funds that while the child can’t touch, he children get money every year, just for breathing. Just look at the Kennedy’s. Houses are in a trust, that the family can use, but not houses that they can sell.