Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, is none too enamored with death taxes.
"If there were ever a right time to eliminate the estate tax in America, it is right now," he
writes in The Washington Times.
"The latest tax collection data make an overwhelmingly persuasive case for abolishing the most immoral and counterproductive of all federal taxes."
The amount of revenue raised by estate taxes is trivial — $12.7 billion in 2013, or 0.5 percent of total federal tax revenue. And the total is falling to boot — 46 percent since 2001.
The tax this year applies to estates of $5,430,000 and up.
"The major propeller of growth in a nation is that one generation after another leaves wealth to the next," Moore states.
"This makes societies richer over time as trillions of dollars of wealth are passed to children and grandchildren."
Moreover, "the higher the tax rate the less the incentive for wealth creation in the first place," he says.
"The incentive is to die broke, in which case future generations get nothing, but the government gets shut out too. This is called a lose-lose for everyone."
Star CNBC commentator
Larry Kudlow makes the case for lower taxes in general in a column on Moneynews.
"To maximize growth, jobs, opportunity, and upward mobility, the U.S. must recapture the first principles of economic growth that were so successful in the 1960s, '80s, and '90s," he writes.
"Namely, pro-growth policies should seek a low-rate, broad-based flat tax, limited government spending, the lightest possible economic regulations, sound money, and free trade."
Kudlow notes that since 2000, economic growth has averaged only 2 percent a year. The rate was 3.4 percent for the prior 100 years.
"To get back to the long-run trend, which epitomizes the most powerful engine of free-market capitalist prosperity in the history of history, future growth over the next decade will have to average 4 percent annually," he notes.
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