To understand why we need to have an Estate Tax, we must simply ask ourselves why we care. After all, it should be a truly "painless" tax - the "taxpayer" is dead!

But it is not painless. It is deeply resented because it goes against two very powerful human desires: Everyone wants to give their kids a head-start in life. And everyone wants to achieve immortality. A business or fortune that lives on after our death is a form of immortality, like the Ford Motor Company or the Ford Foundation.

Those are good desires. In moderation, they result in loving parents and a prosperous economy. The problem lies in excess. There is a strong public policy argument to be made against the unlimited, multigenerational accumulation of massive wealth.

While everyone gives lip-service to the importance of competition on a "level playing field", the reality is that we want to give our own children and grandchildren every advantage we can: a good education, a circle of contacts and our estates. Up to a point, this is a virtue.

But, a viable Republic requires an aristocracy of talent - and so does a capitalist economy. Creation of wealth usually requires talent. Inheritance of wealth is talent-neutral; an heir may be talented or not.

With or without talent, money has mass; after a certain point, money attracts money. The first million is the hardest, but then the rich really do get richer.

The long-term problem for society is that - in the real world - enough talentless money can freeze out moneyless talent. A guy with a great idea - even a guy with a Harvard education and a $100,000 in the bank - cannot reasonably compete with a mediocre member of the Billionaire Boys Club. A team that starts on the 20 or 30 can't compete with one born "first and goal".

The present Estate Tax is outdated. It needs to be revised so that family farms and small businesses can pass down freely. But the children of billionaires can scrape by on a few hundred million. Call it character-building - for them and the Republic.

Philip F. Cardarella is an Attorney at Law. Contact him at 816.471.1300.

Estate planning is the exercise of free will; the tax planning that the government requires as part of it is yet another stealth tax imposed upon the assets one has accumulated in this life. We feel compelled to employ lawyers, financial planners, accountants and others providing a real service, but to what end? Ultimately, to avoid the tax on the grave. But this aforementioned stealth tax doesn't really exist in as honest a form as one might believe, because assets are taxed at least twice--once when earned and then from the grave. If you happen to have planned for retirement, there are income taxes to pay on retirement savings, plus the estate tax at the federal level and state inheritance taxes. If you are the beneficiary of a life insurance policy, while the beneficiary doesn't pay income taxes on it (don't talk too loudly in public about this one), it is part of Uncle Fred's estate, and taxable from the grave, again unless you have placed it into a government-approved vehicle such as a life insurance trust.

And then there are the small private businesses, including family farms, which, because they are owned by mere humans, are not deemed worthy of protection from the endangered species list. Assets must be involuntarily surrendered, usually at the wrong time, just to pay Caesar his tribute and to accomplish the class warrior's dreams of wealth redistribution. The Founding Fathers waged their own war with King George over taxation without representation, but dead folks can't vote. We should speak for them, and for all the people that remain. The people that employ the largest portion of our population and work the land should be able to keep their fortunes, large and small, in their families for generations if they choose to do so. The taxpayers should at least be allowed to fairly engage market forces without the government's heavy and "invisible" hand pushing them down into a financial grave.

David M. Minnick is a Kansas City lawyer supporting his farming habit in Clay County. Contact him at 816.221.7499 or minnickd@aol.com.