Mark Davis

From your lips to God's ears. But in reality it should be abolished. However, like it's horrid kin the AMT, the IRS can't live without the revenue from it now. I would love a way to measure the billable hours and revenue from financial attorneys/estate planners and accountants from those two. The AMT is likely the more insidious of the two because it's not even hitting the taxpayers it was originally meant to target.

Adjust your thinking to $5MM, that's where the estate tax exemption will sit as it sunsets in 2026.

That is your prerogative for sure. If you want to give some of your remaining assets at death to charity, that's a noble thing. But to use the term generational wealth, again we have to be specific. What is that number? Because in the tax code, you have to enact these laws to kick in at certain levels. It's easy to use those terms without putting a number to them, but when you have to put the number on it then it forces you to consider the people you draw the line at. There's a huge difference between someone like Warren Buffett and a ranch family who has one surviving child that inherits farmland and little cash with it. But to be clear, I make no doubt I'm defending all of the folks the estate tax hits. They've been taxed on those funds, they should be able to spend them or leave them as they wish. You aren't starting your argument there though as far as if something has to be taxed. You HAVE taxed them, and at the highest marginal rates I'd assume. Again, how much is enough in percentage terms?

Well said. Certainly given inflation over time, the status of millionaire means less than it once did. But many millionaires are nothing more than people with good jobs who saved well. They are far from CEO's or titans of industry. The estate tax punishes these people versus the people who blew all their money on that latest gadget.

People fail to realize, we could tax "the rich", or 1% at 100% and it wouldn't fix our deficit. People like Elizabeth Warren and her "tippy top" wealth tax, which failed throughout Europe, is an acknowledgement of that. It's no surprise many estate tax fans favor that wealth tax as well. It's the same principle of seizing assets that have already been taxed.

That's not a valid analogy and is a bit telling. You are comparing someone's child keeping the money versus an unrelated third party who is generating earned income. The term "slave job" though tells me you don't really understand the laws and taxation as much as you have a feeling about wanting to punish someone for being a high earner, or more correctly, a saver. I've found through my time that most estate tax fans tend to be envious of what someone else earned. And honestly that's ok, I just see it through the lens of what I can learn as a businessman from them. In some ways that makes me envious in that I want to learn from them and I think it makes everyone better. I'm not championing anyone or anything beyond people keeping what they earned and paid their tax on. If that makes me a fan of the rich, you can call it that. I'm more a fan of capitalism and pretty unapologetic about it. I'll ask you the same question though that I ask all big tax proponents, how much is enough? Give me a percentage where the government shouldn't take another dime of your money.

From a tax fairness standpoint it has never made sense. It’s a second run at money that’s been already taxed. To make it worse, it’s taxed at a higher rate than the top ordinary income rate. It has never sat right with me that the government can basically decide you have too much even after you’ve paid your taxes, which is what the estate tax does. I’ll save everyone from my diatribe on how it is especially punitive to those who inherit land. From the time of my early tax classes in college it was this one that always stuck out as the worst to me. As time went on, I grew especially hostile towards the AMT as well. Not to mention one of these taxes keeps attorneys in business and the other one keeps accountants billable hours up. If you can calculate the AMT without assistance, I can find hoards of people willing to hire you on the spot.

To me that's the most left wing tax of the ones we have. The government wants another larger bite of money that's been taxed already. I'm not sure why we feel we deserve a second tax run at someone else's money they leave to their kids. The AMT is also especially abhorrent from the view of a CPA/financial analyst.

I want to vomit every time I hear those two words together

To each his own. I remember her from Louisville and LSU, give me the leggy one all day.

Now if this girl were on the team I might watch

The entire populace there has been raised since birth to hate Jews. When you raise a child in that environment, nobody should be surprised when terrorists and pro terror ideologies are the result. There's no real de-programming people at that point. Nobody should be shocked they are keeping hostages in with civilians.

I understand your view, but we simply disagree on both. I spent much of my career running financial models for a Fortune 500 company where not only sale and acquisition costs/revenues were taken in, but the ancillary financial effects of those situations were modeled. I run my own business today and still model financial things like few do because it's just the way I was trained. So I understand quite well there are downstream economic effects of any action taken and I have taken those into consideration when forming an opinion. I'm here to tell you that regardless of what either of us believe, that both items you mention above change degree and potentially even where something is an economic cost or detriment based on volume. It's my belief that volume of equilibrium when it comes to immigration, specifically illegal immigration, is well below what we have seen under the Biden administration. I don't think it would be reasonable to argue we could take in 1 billion refugees and it would be a net positive impact. I also don't think it's reasonable to believe that if we had zero immigration and we allowed one immigrant in who filled a much needed job and paid taxes that he would be a detriment. If that makes sense, which I think anyone being reasonable would agree, then we agree the number is likely somewhere in the middle. So the question is only where is that number? Now when it comes to security and knowing who is entering, in my view that should not even be up for debate. It's simply asinine what we are doing.

We've had these discussions before, even the economics of it. I'm convinced you're wrong, you're convinced I'm wrong. I don't think it's particularly close. We can't be giving people free healthcare, housing them, and educating them. It's breaking us, and it's breaking our cities. That doesn't even get into the dangers of allowing unfettered migration of people over our border where we have no clue who they are.

You can be pro immigration and want people to do it through a legal process. There's no doubt we actually do need some of the labor that immigrants bring. This shouldn't be an extreme issue either way. But while there are obviously many many millions of people who want to come, they should go through a vetting process so that we know we aren't letting dangerous people in. This is such a political football right now though this won't get solved. What we have in reality for this election is the binary choice of the Trump position or the Biden position, there is no in between, at least not for now. Taking that view in the context of Tim's question, you don't have to like every aspect of what Trump says on this to prefer his position to what Biden has done.

I don't think that's her preference. But she does feel like we should get some kind of work visa where the people who have been here for years can pay taxes, we actually agree on that. But just during the Biden years, we have had 8 million or so I think cross illegally. I don't know the exact number, but that is pretty close I believe. That's a number we simply can't sustain and in these cases these aren't people who have been here for a generation or we even know who they are. I think she would be in favor of deporting these folks as would I. Edit: That 8 million is an old number, appears to be closer to 10 million. That's a shocking number.

That down ballot Republicans have been hit with the abortion issue has been tested in quite a few elections and it's definitely hurt them. There are enough people who don't like Trump's style and rhetoric that if all else were equal, he would be defeated in the general. The problem is Biden has been horrific on the border and inflation has really crippled the average American's purchasing power. I know you disagree with these two things, but polling shows you are in the minority there. It's that old saying in politics that when you are explaining, you are losing. Biden owns these issues/detriments right now whether you think it's valid or not. My wife and I don't agree on politics sometimes. I know she never saw herself voting for Trump but she's there now. Luckily for us we are well off enough we can overcome the inflation, but the border issue lost her for Biden. Even if you are pro immigration, we should know who is coming into our country, especially today with all the turmoil in the world.

Yeah, inflation is a huge one as well that can't be omitted. Again, I think that issue is more targeted at Biden than down ballot Democrats. I'm not really sure why, but down ballot Republicans tend to get hit with the abortion issue a little bit more. It also should be stated there are voters out there who aren't in lock step with either candidate on these major issues but have to pick which of them is most important to them. Lately in more state wide type elections the D's have done a good job of making abortion that issue. So far though the economy and border seems to be overcoming that when it comes to Biden/Trump.

To be honest as someone from the other side, I think they do see that. I think overall that issue does hurt Trump a little. If the candidate on the other side was anyone other than Biden it would show up more. Biden's age is a huge problem, more even than Trump's age is for him. I know the D side of things doesn't want to hear it, but the border is a huge albatross for Joe Biden, I think at least as much as abortion is for Trump. That's the difference. Down ballot D's aren't blamed as much for the border as Biden is for wiping out the Trump EO's.

I think there are very few moveable voters as well. I think it's about turn out and maybe fighting over that 1% or so in five or so states of moveable voters. People already know these two, they know what to expect and what they are getting.

It seems unlikely to me that NV would vote for Trump but not AZ given their history. I know polling is flipped where NV is the more red of the two but that's never been the case previously.

I think that's a pretty accurate assessment if you believe the polling in NV and AZ especially. If you flip GA/AZ/NV back to Trump from last cycle, that's enough for Trump to be at 268. All 3 of those states have been polling pretty solidly for Trump. I'm most skeptical of NV but it seems to be polling the furthest toward him of all those. I don't think there's any doubt about the ME district staying red, but there's two polls I found for the Omaha NE district and one was in Biden's favor and one for Trump. That's the path to a 269-269 situation if that went Trump and Biden won the 3 upper MW states. I don't see Trump winning that district though without having enough strength to at least win one of the others.

There's a reason there are guard towers and dudes with rifles in them as you head down the highway to pull into them. That was something I remember from my time there. Given that they felt it was needed, I was appreciative of them being there.

Latest polls out showing VA is now tied. I'm a little skeptical of that as VA grows in the DC suburbs to the north, that is an awfully blue area. But if that polling is accurate that has to be setting off alarm bells at Biden HQ. If Biden loses VA, there is no path. The NV numbers I just keep not believing as well, but now Trump has finally hit 50 there and if that is accurate, you may see resources shift out of there before we get too much further along.

Spent many long nights in Vicksburg casinos when I was first putting card counting into practice. Before I lived in MS we spent a night in Vicksburg on our way to Dallas when I was a kid. My dad got sick that night and walked around in the Confederate cemetary there to try and walk it off I guess. Stayed sick the whole trip. By the time we drove home he had to lie in the back seat. Ended up his appendix burst that night and he kept on going through the trip til we got home and damn near died. He was a pretty tough old guy. But lots of memories of being in those casinos way too late and seeing a ton of sad sights.