I'm certainly no billionaire, but the estate tax seems morally wrong.
As pointed out here, if a man can piss away his money on hookers and blow while he's living, he should likewise be allowed to choose those who can piss it away for him after he's gone.
Moreover, if our government had even a smidgen of a history of taking the dollars confiscated by the estate tax and spending them 'wisely', rather than pissing them away in the manner in which we all know they do, I might be more inclined to support such a concept. But, they most emphatically do not.
About the only good, I suppose, that possibly could come from the estate tax is that it might prompt the wealthy into thinking long and hard about supporting charitable works of which they approve and they select.
OTOH, if I've built a successful small business, including a farm or ranch operation, and I want my kids to continue on with it without fear that they'll have to sell it just to satisfy the estate tax, I'd have to say 'hell no'. Splitting up a large going concern would have a negative effect on many, including the business' customers, vendors and employees.
On top of all that, with our government literally creating fiat money by the trillions these days, I doubt the estate tax would do much to bring in a meaningful amount of revenue.
It all seems like the politics of class envy, and I say that as one who will (most likely) never be subject to paying a dime of estate tax.
I also acknowledge that most heirs don't appreciate inherited wealth, and that it ends up in many cases being squandered on the 'good life'. That's a shame, but it's nothing new. Solomon fretted about that same issue 3,000 years ago and wrote about it in the second chapter of Ecclesiastes.
Quote:
18 Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
19 And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise [man] or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This [is] also vanity.