Death tax isn't dead.

ITEM: The Christian Science Monitor for May 1, 2006, reported:

   Tax disputes don't often turn so
   clearly into moral issues. Usually,
   legislators make tax choices along
   the lines of Jean Baptiste Colbert,
   a 17th-century finance minister of
   France's Louis XIV, who said: "The
   art of taxation consists in so plucking
   the goose as to obtain the largest
   amount of feathers with the least possible
   amount of hissing."

Well, there's a lot of hissing right Flow over the estate tax. "There is a big moral dimension" in this tax, says Steve Ricchetti, cochair off the Coalition for America's Priorities, and a former deputy chief of staff for President Clinton.

The United States, he says, "was not founded on the principle of inherited wealth." Rather; the goal is a system with "basic fairness and equity" for all so that "hard work" can be rewarded with achievement, success, and prosperity.

ITEM: New Republic columnist "TRB" (real name, Peter Beinart) contended in the magazine's May 4 issue:

"If the estate tax goes, progressive taxation follows, and social inequities continue to harden, then the danger of social unrest may not always seem as remote as it does today. The liberal challenge is to make sure that day never comes--to protect capitalism once again, not merely from new radicals who might attack it, but from a new Gilded Age right that sings capitalism's praises while eroding the moral foundation that permits it to endure."

CORRECTION; Death and taxation are said to be certainties. There is one good thing you can say about death, however: it does not get worse each time Congress convenes.

A phase-out of the death tax was passed in 2001; it is supposed to disappear completely in 2010. Since the phase-out plan was initiated, four times the House of Representatives supported its repeal for good, only to be thwarted by liberals in the Senate. Because that 2001 law is not permanent, the death tax is now scheduled to return with a veritable vengeance in 2011, at a confiscatory rate of 55 percent.

Everyone knows "you can't take it with you"--but with the death tax, you may not be able to leave your earnings to your children either, at least not without the government stealing more than half of the total. The tax has serious repercussions. In fact, it often causes family businesses and farms to fold.

While proponents of the levy are keen on pointing to the amount of money it supposedly raises, they ignore facts. A number of studies, including one last year by professors from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, indicate that the tax's permanent repeal would result in a net increase in federal revenues, because of the growth it would encourage as well as the additional capital-gains taxes that would ensue.

Some liberal economists have been willing to look beyond the special interests of their partisan allies, and to admit that taking major portions of estates results in less money for business expansion and other benefits. For example, as concluded in a 1992 study by Henry Aaron and Alicia Munnel (later an adviser to President Bill Clinton): "In short, the estate and gift taxes in the United States have failed to achieve their intended purposes. They raise little revenue. They impose large excess burdens. They are unfair."

In promoting this tax that closes business, destroys jobs, and confiscates hard-earned money, advocates of it have had to rely on non-financial reasons to keep it in effect. Hence, the argument that having the tax man pinching the poke of the dead is the "moral" thing to do.

All of a sudden, left-wingers who have never met a giveaway program that they dislike want to force folks to work. Such proponents, acknowledges the Christian Science Monitor, "are truly outraged by the prospect of repeal because they see the tax as involving genuine moral issues. These include the merits of working for a living, rather than living on inherited wealth. The tax, they say, also provides some financing for federal programs that equalize opportunities for children of poorer families, or provide healthcare, or other national welfare measures that benefit the less wealthy."

Never mind the morality of taxing as sets that often have already been hit by the income tax, payroll tax, sales tax, and capital-gains tax.

In truth, the supposed advantages to big government are generally exaggerated. A study by the Joint Economic Committee in the U.S. Congress, just released in May, validates this conclusion. As summarized in Costs and Consequences of the Federal Estate Tax, there is no legitimate motive for the tax and many compelling reasons to reduce or abolish it. For instance:

* The estate tax impedes economic growth through high compliance costs and economic inefficiencies, and has reduced the stock of capital in the economy by approximately $847 billion.

* The estate tax hinders entry into self-employment and breaks up family-run businesses, many of which lack the liquid assets needed to meet their estate-tax obligations. The tax is also an impediment to upward income and wealth mobility.

* Much research indicates that the estate tax is an ineffective tool in fighting wealth and income inequality. In fact, some estimates indicate that the tax exacerbates inequality.

A few honest liberals have admitted as much. As Joseph Stiglitz, chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, has concluded: "Of course, prohibitively high inheritance tax rates generate no revenue; they simply force the individual to consume his income during his lifetime."

Unfair, unproductive in raising revenue, and harmful to individuals and the economy: there are plenty of reasons to bury the death tax for good. Plus, it's the moral thing to do.