Estate Tax

You know how people say the two things you can't escape are death and taxes? Well, it turns out you can't escape taxes even after you die. Whatever you leave behind is taxed—heavily.

In fact, estate tax has become a political football with spikes in it. Politicians define wealth in vastly different means and manners based on the geography of their constituency. In fact, five million dollars in Des Moines, IA is probably wealth. But five million dollars in Silicon Valley barely buys you a home without asbestos in the roof. The reality is that the U.S. has no uniform wealth index, and the notion of how estates get taxed now exists as a volatile and angering discussion set, particularly when politicians suggest that anything above a million dollars should be taxed at some 70-80%; meaning that a generation's hard work scrimping and saving ends up being taken over by the government when the people who earned that money die.

Because this issue exists as such a hot-button, expect us to add all kinds of pithy notes to this glossary term as we go.

See: QPRT.