{"id":88,"date":"2010-12-08T14:51:35","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T22:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/?p=88"},"modified":"2010-12-08T14:57:37","modified_gmt":"2010-12-08T22:57:37","slug":"do-the-wealthy-have-a-patriotic-duty-to-pay-more-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/do-the-wealthy-have-a-patriotic-duty-to-pay-more-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Do the Wealthy Have a Patriotic Duty to Pay More Taxes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrats are feeling betrayed by President Obama, while Republicans are gloating over the tax deal they struck with the President to extend the Bush era tax cuts for two years.\u00a0 The deal also includes setting the estate tax exemption at $5 million for two years at a rate of 35%.\u00a0 Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post claims that Obama sold out the Left<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0Taking a more conciliatory tone, Senator Reid reminds us<\/a> that the President does not make law, Congress does, and that there is still work to be done on the tax deal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I have been wondering about requests by rich Americans to increase their taxes.\u00a0 One noted group, Wealth for the Common Good<\/a>, consists of wealthy advocating higher taxes for the rich.\u00a0 Just today, this organization issued a press release in response to the Obama deal.\u00a0 The headline reads: \u201cMillionaires Urge Rejection of Bush Tax Cuts for Rich.\u201d\u00a0 This organization has been widely reported on, here<\/a> and here<\/a>, for example.<\/p>\n

Maybe it is my background as an estate planner helping people to avoid taxes on their wealth, but I can\u2019t understand this desire to be taxed.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t the wealthy get wealthy by making as much money as possible?\u00a0 Granted, Wealth for the Common Good only has a few hundred wealthy members. These people certainly do not represent anything like a majority of the wealthy.\u00a0 But who is right?\u00a0 Is there a patriotic duty to pay more taxes?<\/p>\n

I am reminded of a surprising statement by a retired estate planning attorney, a respected member of the bar.\u00a0 He recently told me that he consistently advised his clients to avoid estate planning that resulted in paying less in taxes.\u00a0 He would tell his clients that paying tax is good, that our government needs the money.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think he ever advised anyone to actually make charitable contributions to the US Treasury, but he may just as well have done so. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but does this make sense?\u00a0 Again, is there a patriotic duty to pay more taxes?<\/p>\n

The law imposes no such duty.\u00a0 That\u2019s according to no less an authority than Justice Learned Hand.\u00a0 Perhaps the most respected member of any of the United States Courts of Appeal, he was, in his time,\u00a0widely considered the \u201ctenth\u201d member of the Supreme Court.\u00a0 He wrote that there is no patriotic duty to pay more taxes than the law requires.\u00a0 His exact words were:\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.”\u00a0 Gregory v. Helvering<\/a>, 69 F.2d 809, 810 (2d Cir. 1934), aff’d, 293 U.S. 465, 55 S.Ct. 266, 79 L.Ed. 596 (1935).<\/p>\n

The best way to answer this question of whether there is a patriotic duty to pay more taxes is with another question.\u00a0 If Congress increases taxes on the wealthy, will those who have lobbied for more taxes take advantage of legal steps to avoid taxes or reduce their tax liability?\u00a0 I expect so.\u00a0 And who can blame them?\u00a0 There is no duty to pay more taxes than the law requires.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Fat<\/a>\u00a0\"Creative<\/a> photo<\/a> credit: Randy Son Of Robert<\/a><\/small><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats are feeling betrayed by President Obama, while Republicans are gloating over the tax deal they struck with the President to extend the Bush era tax cuts for two years.\u00a0 The deal also includes setting the estate tax exemption at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,161,4],"tags":[160,23,25,24,22,26],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}