I generally believe that social conservatives and libertarians are natural allies. As I wrote last year, this is “because there is wide and deep agreement on the principle of individual responsibility. They may focus on different ill effects, but both camps understand that big government is a threat to a virtuous and productive citizenry.”
I even promoted a “Fusionist” principle based on a very good column by Tim Carney, and I suspect a large majority of libertarians and social conservatives would agree with the statement.
But that doesn’t mean social conservatives and libertarians are the same. There’s some fascinating research on the underlying differences between people of different ideologies, and I suspect the following story might be an example of where the two camps might diverge.
But notice I wrote “might” rather than “will.” I’ll be very curious to see how various readers react to this story about a gay couple that is taking an unusual step to minimize an unfair and punitive tax imposed by the government of Pennsylvania.
John met Gregory at a gay bar in Pittsburgh nearly 45 years ago and immediately fell in love. …Now, as lifelong partners facing the financial and emotional insecurities of old age, they have legally changed their relationship and are father and son — John, 65, has adopted Gregory, 73. The couple was worried about Pennsylvania’s inheritance tax. “If we just live together and Gregory willed me his assets and property and anything else, I would be liable for a 15 percent tax on the value of the estate,” said John. “By adoption, that decreases to 4 percent. It’s a huge difference.” …the couple had considered marrying in another state, but because their primary residence was in Pennsylvania, which does not recognize same-sex marriage, they would still be subjected to the inheritance law.
The Judge who approved the adoption obviously wasn’t too troubled by this unusual method of tax avoidance.
The judge did turn to John and said, “I am really curious, why are you adopting [Gregory]?” “I said, ‘Because it’s our only legal option to protect ourselves from Pennsylvania’s inheritance taxes,'” said John. “He got it immediately.” The judge agreed to sign the adoption papers on the spot and handed it to the clerk. Then he turned and looked at John, “Congratulations, it’s a boy.”
So what’s your take on this issue? For some groups, it’s easy to predict how they’ll react to this story.
1. If you have the statist mindset of England’s political elite or if you work at a bureaucracy such as the OECD, you’ll think this is morally wrong. Not because you object to homosexuality, but because you think tax avoidance is very bad and you believe the state should have more money.
2. If you’re a libertarian, you’re cheering for John and Gregory. Even if you don’t personally approve of homosexuality, you don’t think the state should interfere with the private actions of consenting adults and you like the idea of people keeping more of the money they earn.
3. If you’re a public finance economist, you think any form of death tax is a very perverse form of double taxation and you like just about anything that reduces this onerous penalty on saving and investment.
But there are some groups that will be conflicted.
1. Social conservatives don’t like big government and bad tax policy, but they also don’t approve of homosexuality. And, in this case, it’s now technically incestuous homosexuality! If I had to guess, most social conservatives will argue that the court should not have granted the adoption. We’ll see if there are some good comments on this post.
2. Leftists also will be conflicted. They like the death tax and they want the government to have more money, but they also believe in identity politics and wouldn’t want to offend one of their constituent groups. I’m guessing identity politics would trump greed, but I suspect their ideal approach would be to tax all inheritances at 15 percent.
In my fantasy world, needless to say, there’s no death tax and the entire issue disappears.
[…] Gay men will adopt their lovers. […]
[…] Gay men will adopt their lovers. […]
[…] P.P.P.S. I’ll defend just about anybody who tries to escape the vicious and destructive death tax, including straight men who marry each other and gay men who arrange fake adoptions. […]
you have to wonder what will happen when the courts validate polygamy… hetero/homo-sexual polygamist unions? there are lots of Muslim polygamists… and it is common for elderly men to marry women in their teens… the men pass away and their young wives draw on the system for years… and if the old guy has 4 wives and 20 children when he passes? all practices that are common in the faith… and well documented… in America… Muslims should be free to practice their faith as it has been practiced since the early 7th century… it seems it might conflict with poorly designed government entitlement programs… but it’ll be fun to watch…
I have no moral problem with one lover adopting the other and thus reducing the inheritance tax on a transfer between them, whichever way it goes (and the judge’s signing off on it after hearing the explanation would indicate the state won’t invalidate the scheme as a sham, which surprises me).
But doesn’t that mean they’re walking into another trap? The next time they go to bed it will now be incest.
[…] in 2013, I wrote about a gay guy adopting his long-time lover in order to escape the evil and pernicious death tax. I speculated that this would cause […]
[…] in 2013, I wrote about a gay guy adopting his long-time lover in order to escape the evil and pernicious death tax. I speculated that this would cause […]
[…] in 2013, I wrote about a gay guy adopting his long-time lover in order to escape the evil and pernicious death tax. I speculated that this would cause confusion […]
[…] On a more positive note, a gay “adoption” in Pennsylvania helped one couple reduce exposure to that state’s death […]
[…] I speculated whether leftists or social conservatives would be more upset about a gay man legally adopting his lover in order to minimize Pennsylvania’s death […]
[…] P.S. Heck, taxes even cause gay people to adopt their partners. […]
I’ve always considered I was a conservative- both social and economic. However, loaterly, I find myself to be more of a libertarian. I believe more and more that is what our founders were.
I believe your example is a very clever way to get around a set of bad laws. However, I do not condone homosexual unions. I am not worried about them avoiding taxes- more power to them. However, I don’t think they’ll appreciate the “marriage tax penalty” when they discover it..hah. What I am against is when they are getting married so that they can tap into the free stuff their “spouse” is already getting from the government. i.e. the ability to collect on their social security long after they are dead, the ability to tag onto their medicare/ nedicade/ whatever just because they claim to be the spouse. In the institution of normal marriage, this was the original reason for Social Secutrity- too many elderly women living past the husband’s means. And at that time, the life expectancy was about when such government assistance kicked in. I believe that many woud suppport such services for elderly widows/ widowers, etc. But today, it has become part of the normal couple’s retirement plan. I am personally tired of seeing old retired persons sitting at slot machines and “entertaining” themselves with my hard-earned money. That is just wrong. And it is a leach on society that will eventually bring us down. Add in all the homosexuals, and their extremely costly deseases, and you have a system that is bound for societal destruction.
[…] Daniel Mitchell presents a scenario that should get social and economic libertarians on the same side, and could get economic lefties and social conservatives on the opposite side: […]
statists believe Americans are not intelligent enough to conduct their own affairs without the supervision of the nanny state… social conservatives tend to want to hijack the mechanisms of government in order to impose their views of morality on the society at large… both groups believe strongly in government control and coercion… and tend to discount personal responsibility in favor of collectivism… libertarians tend to believe that their fellow citizens are smart enough and moral enough to conduct their own affairs without the supervision of politicians and bureaucrats…………………………….. at least until the mother ship arrives…
It is easy to be a libertarian on issues that have truly zero externalities, for example whether a couple of some potential alien race on constellation B-Centauri, which we’ll never come in contact with (though some believe we already have 🙂 ), practices homosexuality or not.
However, as every good liberal/progressive will tell you, there is no such thing as a truly zero externality human action. If drugs become more accepted in schools, in streets, in parks, your kids will become more susceptible to using them themselves, perhaps in a moment of weakness, true, ultimately of their own will or lack of strong self-confidence. That cigarette that some person just lit in his apartment the next block over will (as a rather simple chemistry calculation can show) eventually bring a few extra molecules of smoke into your own residence — an infinitesimal number for health purposes — but to the liberal that is a few molecules too many, as he can tell you while loading up himself with another dose of caffeine with his liberal friends at the new local Starbucks. That house that someone is trying to build on the hillside across two miles away will insert one tiny spec of extra human activity in your view, when you drink your coffee on your porch five minutes once a week. So if you can get together with one hundred of your neighbors you can probably outvote and destroy that poor chap’s dream across the hill – in effect preventing him from doing on his land what was done on yours and your neighbors’.
A libertarian is one who loves freedom enough, to accept moderate externalities in order to uphold the liberty of others. Someone who has to now spend extra time talking and educating his children about drugs because freedom brings more drugs into the street – though perhaps less overall criminality.
Social conservatives and progressives have difficulty with that concept to various degrees – Their threshold of accepting externalities for the sake of upholding other people’s freedom is low.
But libertarianism may be much more than mere love of liberty. Ultimately, libertarianism has an unstoppable utilitarian function, and that is all that matters in the end. Societies who practice it, leave people more free, and grow faster. And the compounding effect of growth becomes the exclusive determinant of prosperity in the long term. Under slow growth, nothing, nothing is sustainable! Under slower growth, it only becomes a matter of time when you fall enough behind to cry uncle, and capitulate to those who allow more personal freedom.
That does not mean unlimited libertarianism bordering anarchy. But certainly more libertarianism that we (even here in America) have now. There is a strong correlation between libertarianism and long term prosperity, though there are also a few exceptions, or they could be simply temporary or transitional situations which eventually fall into the correlation in the longer term.
An afterthought
The difference between a libertarian and a conservative is that the conservative has a continuing belief in Original Sin
I heard of a not entirely different scheme of inheritance tax avoidance in England around thirty years ago which had the Inland Revenue spitting teeth.
My informant was a financial professional so I believed the tale.
The son of a large landowner became engaged to be married. Then the engagement was ended and the landowner, who was in poor health, married the son’s former fiancée.
The landowner, his new bride, son and former wife all went on the honeymoon together. The landowner transferred the estate to his new wife thus completely avoiding capital transfer tax. All four continued to live in the big house.
After a year, the landowner divorced his new wife and remarried his first wife. The son married his former fiancée. The estate had passed from one generation to another without incurring tax.
I agree with Paul.
Social Conservatives disagree with liberals only in what they want to order people to do by force of law.
I think that that is a closeted reference to an uber being. I happen to believe in one myself, but I don’t think that has any bearing on policy. Just my own life.
“But the right to practice sodomy or inject yourself with heroin has, in the fullest metaphysical sense, no objective basis.”
Could you explain this? If I have the right to ingest caffeine, why not cocaine? If I have the right to have privacy in my own home for copulation, why not sodomy?
And in what way can metaphysics give anyone an “objective” basis for anything?
it’s prudent estate planning… nothing more… when the time comes… you sit down with your attorney and play the hand you are dealt… it’s just sad that Americans are forced to go to extremes in order to protect their assets and to insure that they are distributed in accordance with their wishes…
As a social conservative, here’s my take on it. They’re going to be a gay couple regardless of whether or not the court granted their adoption. They aren’t trying to redefine marriage or the family. They are ONLY trying to avoid paying more taxes. I don’t see it as a social issue at all and have no problem with it. In fact, I congratulate their intuitiveness!
A good social conservative will agree, the death tax should be eliminated. But the right to practice sodomy or inject yourself with heroin has, in the fullest metaphysical sense, no objective basis.
That being said, a social conservative need not necessarily object to the Pennsylvania guys getting a civil union. To hijack an institution that has a minimal, natural function of protecting children from the whims of noncommital parents, for the purpose of validating a class of people’s feelings, ought to revolt libertarians.
Since when is it the government’s business to actively make you feel like an accepted member of society? Schools and parents have failed to inculcate a good sense of self-esteem in the victimhood crowd.
Good stuff. I agree.
Sent from my iPad
The people must exert their democratic power! We need to request action from the legislature, article by article come to majoritarian consenus, and vote a good 2000 page government law to sort this out with good coverage of all scenarios.
We could call it: Fraudulent Adoption Taxation Circumvention Act II, also known as FATCA II.
I agree with Paul.
Fabulous!
Kudos to the judge.
Kudos to Dan for a very funny column.
I agree with Paul.
Of course there should be no death tax, as there should be no state marriage–a person should be able to form marriage contracts with any other consenting adult(s) without the state trying to define marriage.
However, I take issue with the “natural allies” thing. Social conservatives, like progressives, believe in government intrusion into people’s private lives, just in different areas. Progressives want to control what you eat, how you get health care, what charities you donate to, what kind of car you drive, etc. Social conservatives want to control your sexual behavior, your use of chemical substances, how you entertain yourself with your own money, etc. What unites social conservatives and libertarians at this point in time is the majority status of the progressives, but libertarians should take care of getting too cozy with these moral progressives, IMHO.
Somehow you failed to predict how a Republican
from the commonsensical branch feels about it.
I feel it is only just that a legal remedy is used to
provide relief from what is simply “bad” law. It is
for this reason we have judges in the first place
but most of them have neither the guts or brains
to do the right thing. Kudos to this judge.