Bill Gates

Bill Gates Analysis

After reading this prompt to both my parents in order to get their feedback, I waited for my mother and father to share with me their opinion of the estate tax. Both of my parents were pro on both issues: being born into the, as Bill Gates Sr. puts it, "the hugely rich" United States and pro estate tax.

The reasoning behind my mother's argument was that it was better off to be born in the United States than the poverty stricken Ethiopia. She said that hundreds of people come to the United States from foreign countries with nothing in their pockets but still make it. What would be the point, she argued, of living in a war torn, below poverty level country, just to escape a tax on your estate? In other words, my mom's analysis involved the cost/benefit ratio. As far as she was concerned, the cost of having to live in a third world country economically, socially and mentally outweighed the benefit of not having to pay an estate tax.

My father's analysis was almost identical to my mother's, except his logic revolved around the concept of sunk costs. If the tax was placed on his estate after he died, why should it bother him? It might affect his children and other relatives, but the fact of the matter is that the estate was his and if he is no longer around to put it to good use than why not use it to hopefully "better" off society.

Personally, I would have to agree with my parents. I like the fact that the tax is after you pass away, which would eliminate the issue of having to pay this tax while you were alive and struggling to pay your other taxes. Also, it seems a small price to pay when it is compared side by side to the benefits of living in Ethiopia, where the poverty level is so low that it is hard to make a living.