re: I don't understand inheritance tax

We had to go through the estate process when my mother in law died. This was back when the limit was like 1 or 1.5 million dollars. You don't have to do much to reach that limit. She was by no means rich. She owned her own home, owned her own business, and died right before retirement and hadn't touched her retirement accounts. It was terrible to lose a loved one to cancer, then to turn around and have to retain both attorney and an accountant to settle the estate. It was a lengthy, painful process.

As other posters have stated, it is a tax designed specifically to make rich people poor and destroy small businesses. You don't have to have much of a small business to get to 3 million dollars. If you don't have the cash to pay the taxes, you're only alternative is to sell the business or borrow money. Its total bullshite and its double taxation. It's easily the most abhorrent tax they have. frick whoever came up with that shite.