Ray Madoff

is repeal the estate tax because it is providing cover for the rich and not imposing any taxes or raising any revenue.

And we should decide how much we want to subsidize inheritances.

That's the question that we're asking, right?

To what extent should somebody who would otherwise be subject to tax on all income that they acquire be able to acquire an inheritance tax-free?

Maybe it's a million dollars.

Who knows what that amount would be?

but bring that into the income tax system.

Bring inheritances into the income tax system.

And when we do so, we'll have the chance to fix all of those various avoidance techniques that we have that have become so entrenched in the estate tax world because it'll be a clean slate and we'll be able to have a smarter tax that avoids those problems.

And then the third would be to equalize the tax rates between capital gains and ordinary income.

But we have an alternative minimum tax right now, and it's not doing its job.

Exactly.

The AMT doesn't have teeth.

Right.

But if we can, I mean, I think that what you're saying is we need to clean up the system and make it better.

I totally agree.

But I just think the use of the word AMT makes it sound like

that is a single response to the problem rather than the problem is to actually do a more granular approach to things like, for example, like that exemption, those exemptions for startup businesses that you got.

You know, I think those all need to be cleaned up.

But I think a lot of work can be done by making sure that we're taxing investment gains and making sure that we're taxing inheritances.