They are proposing a $1M cap, so basically if you have huge properties you don't get to write them down at death, right? So if you bought a house in 1992 for $400k, and now it's worth $2.1MM and you die, your descendents can right now just sell and never have to pay anything. There is no inheritance tax below $5MM or so, and you never sold the house. Under this proposal, I think that means they have to pay the capital gains of $2.1MM- 400k - 1M. So basically only wealthy people have to pay anything, and they don't have to pay much. But if Donald Trump gives Ivanka the Trump building in his will, beyond the $11M trust limit, he would have to pay capital gains because he never paid anything while he was alive. B** should have to pay something, it's absurd.

I realize there is a desire to “get those rich guys” but reality is the super wealthy will find another shelter.   The scenario described is actually pretty scary for this reason:

My mother in law lived with her husband in a San Francisco home they had for nearly 40 years before his passing and him being kind of the traditional guy from his era had the home in his name only.   Their only income was social security but that was fine as the house was paid for decades ago. Without the current protections she would have had to pay tax on 1M worth of “gains” which would have required her to sell her home.

Granted she could have plenty then to buy something very nice in a less expensive area but why should she be force from her home?

First of all the current cap is $5 million of inheritance. So she could inherit a lot of house and money and not pay anything. The point here is does death wipe the slate? I don't think that's necessarily fair. If you sold it before you die you would have to pay capital gains tax, and so if your descendants sell it, they should pay the tax. And a $1 million dollar exclusion is pretty generous. Bear in mind after that you pay capital gains which is 0% on the first 10k, 15% on the next $500k. Why should you inherit wealth free when people who earn it have to pay taxes? I don't want to live in an oligargchy, and we see wealthy families like the Rockefellers, and the new generation of Gates and Musk. I don't want it left to them to decide to give most of their wealth away. We cannot allow wealth to concentrate forever in society or we will have an aristocracy. This is nothing against wealthy people, I am fairly well off myself. I think $11 million in a trust, not to mention the games you can play transferring assets is quite enough to give anyone a decent start. I don't think it's healthy for society to pass on multibillion dollar generational wealth. Not that most third generation wealthy kids aren't capable of blowing it all on drugs. As to traditional guy, traditionally you take care of your family, and that's  a pretty shitty thing to do, wouldn't you say?

It’s not that he’s being mean or anything but as an immigrant he doesn’t necessarily understand the consequences of certain decisions.  To him it’s perfectly reasonable for him to think when he is gone his wife would be able to continue their household as is and not have the govt take away their home.  That is the problem with these things.  Exactly as you said, you know how to maneuver around such impacts but the average lower income person doesn’t know how to or if they even do doesn’t have the means to.

Were not talking about billion dollar multi-generational wealth here, were talking about real world impacts on people who other than accidentally keeping a modest home in an area where real estate happened to explode would otherwise be considered low to mid middle class.

By lowering the exemption into the range where something like the very home someone lives in triggers these things we are targeting the poor much more than anyone else.