{"id":1438,"date":"2018-12-12T10:46:03","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T18:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/?p=1438"},"modified":"2018-12-12T10:46:54","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T18:46:54","slug":"frank-luntz-death-tax-election-night-polling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/feusa\/frank-luntz-death-tax-election-night-polling\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Luntz: Death Tax Election Night Polling"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>\u201cIt&#8217;s just wrong. The death\/estate tax is wrong for one simple reason: death shouldn&#8217;t be a taxable offense or action. The very idea of making people struggle to file a tax form at the time of death is immoral and unethical.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>The best anti-death tax argument.<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>After a year-long campaign to demonize the Republican tax legislation as a giveaway to the rich, the results are in. Even though most Americans (87%) saw their taxes decrease because of the legislation, only 26% think they paid less taxes. When asked whether they supported or opposed the overall legislation, the results were decidedly mixed: 48% support and 48% opposed. The GOP gave most people back their money, yet less than half of them said \u201c<em>thank you<\/em>.\u201d It really was a pathetic example of awful messaging.<\/p>\n<p>It is therefore not surprising that only 4% consider taxes to be the most important issue facing America right now (#8 on a list of nine issues) and just 11% prioritize additional tax cuts for 2019. Even among Republicans, additional tax cuts rank #9th on a list of 16 different priorities. Tax policy was asked several different ways by several different polls, and the results were always the same: no one cares. To be blunt, there is even less interest in a tax cut now than two years ago \u2013 and it wasn\u2019t a burning issue back then.<\/p>\n<p>And if that wasn\u2019t bad enough, the percentage of people who want to raise taxes on the rich is now equal to the percent who want to cut taxes for everyone. The Left has been motivated and activated, and as a result, the War on the Wealthy is alive and gaining strength.<\/p>\n<p>Yet all is not lost. There are several aspects of the Death Tax issues that have never had greater popularity. As I wrote in my presentation to House and Senate leaders:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>After decades of demonizing the wealthy for not paying their \u201cfair share\u201d of taxes, the American people still overwhelmingly believe a 40% tax on estates is wrong. It is the principle \u2013 that death should not be a taxable event \u2013 rather than the economic impact that matters most. And for <\/strong>rate<strong> reduction, the principle that no one should pay more than 50% of their income in taxes is the strongest argument.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Consider the following results:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fully 80% of voters (and 73% of Democrats!) believe \u201cdeath should not result in the highest tax rates of the entire US tax code\u2026taking more than 40% of someone&#8217;s wealth just because they died isn&#8217;t fair.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>A similar 78% (and 67% of Democrats!) believe \u201cdeath itself should not be a taxable event. Families should not have to pay taxes just because a family member with some wealth died.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Three out of four Americans (74%) believe \u201cit is wrong to force families of wealthy people who die to sell their business or fire their employees just to pay a 40% death tax. The death tax rate should be reduced so that the businesses can continue and employees can keep their jobs after the leader or founder of that business dies.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, 70% say \u201cif you have already paid income taxes, capital gains taxes, taxes on interest and other taxes, it is unfair to tax wealthy people just for dying.<br \/>\nThe effective death tax rate on their savings is well over 50%. No one should have to pay over 50% of their savings in taxes.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are strong results \u2013 as good as we have ever seen. And a clear majority of Democrats join independents and Republicans on all four of these questions. You have won the argument, even though you were unable to win full repeal.<\/p>\n<p>As for 2019, expect a pitched battle on the House side to keep the current exemption. The Democrats are eager to increase spending, and they have already signaled that they will seek to repeal some aspects of the Republican tax law. Just know that public opinion is against them. The results of our final question are pretty clear. When asked whether the death tax should be repealed, or the rate lowered to capital gains, or keep the rate as is\u2026the American people fully reject the status quo:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Full Repeal: 44%<br \/>\nLower Rate:\u00a0 41%<br \/>\nKeep As Is:\u00a0 15%<\/p>\n<p><strong>Even among Democrats, more than three-quarters want either full repeal (36%) or a lower rate (41%)<\/strong>. Yes, in polling \u2026 and on principle \u2026 the Death Tax should die. But in practice \u2026 and in politics \u2026 the road ahead will be difficult.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Dr. Frank I. Luntz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s just wrong. The death\/estate tax is wrong for one simple reason: death shouldn&#8217;t be a taxable offense or action. The very idea of making people struggle to file a tax form at the time of death is immoral and unethical.\u201d The best anti-death tax argument.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feusa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyenterpriseusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}