Conservatively Speaking
State Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) represents parts of four counties: Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, and Walworth. Her Senate District 28 includes New Berlin, Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, Muskego, Waterford, Big Bend, the town of Vernon and parts of Greenfield, East Troy, and Mukwonago. Senator Lazich has been in the Legislature for more than a decade. She considers herself a tireless crusader for lower taxes, reduced spending and smaller government.
Let's keep the estate tax dead
Many would argue that one cannot afford to live in Wisconsin. Many would also argue that one cannot afford to die here, because of our estate (death) tax.The state stopped collecting estate taxes as of January 1, 2008. However, because our state is entrenched in a tax and spend mentality, there are already efforts to do away with the repeal of the estate tax.
Proponents who want to revive the estate tax say there will be a loss of revenue to state coffers. That, of course, is true. Instead of going to the state that would spend the money on questionable programs, the money would go to hard-working families to save, invest, or spend the way they see fit.
A group that calls itself, progressive, One Wisconsin Now, has started a petition drive to urge state legislators to solve the $300 million budget crisis by “ending the $300 million estate tax break for the heirs and heiresses of Wisconsin’s largest fortunes.”
WTMJ radio reported today the group is arguing in an e-mail campaign that the revenues that we once collected from the estate tax should not go to Wisconsin’s next Paris Hilton. That certainly begs the question of who was Wisconsin’s last Paris Hilton?
The Heritage Foundation finds that the estate tax is bad for the economy for the following reasons:
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Reduces economic growth, which hurts the jobs and incomes of the very people wealth redistribution was intended to aid;
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Increases the cost of capital, slowing research and development and investment in assets that would increase worker productivity and wages;
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Keeps interest rates higher on home loans and other major purchases;
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Raises very little revenue--in fact, the death tax may cost the government and taxpayers more in administrative and compliance fees than it raises in revenue; and
- Leads to tax evasion. Wealth distribution tax policy encourages well-to-do and middle-class families to find legal ways to avoid the tax collector.
Here’s the entire Heritage Foundation report.
A few years ago when Congress was debating the repeal of the estate tax, Republican Congressman Kenny Hulshof of Missouri put it clearly and concisely:
"The death of a family member should not be a taxable event, period.”
I plan to honor my pledge with Americans for Prosperity that I will oppose tax increases by opposing any legislative effort in Wisconsin to resurrect the estate tax.
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