, Columnist
Why People Care About the Estate Tax
Not because it matters.
It's not going to interfere with inheriting your grandma's vintage Ford.
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One has to marvel at the politics of the estate tax. I generally believe that people don't care about taxes, as long as someone else is paying them. The estate tax defies that belief. I also generally believe that policies with negligible cost and negligible benefit -- especially those that affect almost no one -- are unlikely to stir the hearts of the electorate. Which is true. Except for the estate tax.
Why does it get people fired up?