WSJ.com - Tax Reform to Die For: "We do not need sophisticated economics, however, to teach us that the death tax is bad. The fundamental lesson of Adam Smith, rooted in common sense, and confirmed in the laboratories of history, is that an economic system must align with ordinary moral principles to allow society to flourish. The death tax at its most basic level does not. It falls, when it falls, on the wrong people -- even for those who seek to tax the rich, on the wrong rich people. The death tax comes to the industrious, the thrifty, and the altruistic. It spares the unproductive, the spendthrift, and the selfish. There is nothing wrong, and a good deal right, with working hard and saving well and, at the end of the day, should fortune so smile, with passing on wealth to the next generation. There is ample time under a properly designed tax system to tax the heirs when and as they spend. Our current tax system taxes people when they work, when they save, when they marry, when they give, and when they die. These are wrong choices, all. We should tax people when and only when they spend. And then we can repeal the death tax, once and for all, for the simple reason that dead men don't spend. (And nor, of course, do dead women.)"

Very well said. Sorry it's subscriber only, but it's only another three sentences beyond what I copied above (now I'm going to get sued), and I thought it was worth reading.

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