Heh you puacheebye! You have a very good point. If I had known that earlier I would not have posted in like manner. So KNNPCB to you too!
Your points are valid and I appreciate it but it should not be forgotten that tax avoidance is another reason for the PAPzis to abolish estate duty. It should not be lost that yearly income tax does provide annual income and in a variety of categories. From these yearly incomes it is quite easy to see how the gecko and family have accumulated their wealth on a yearly basis and with some insight into where their incomes are derived.
Estate duty is a good way but it will only provide a cumulative figure, the yearly income tax payments will also provide a very good indication of the increments in their wealth and provide insights into the various ways that their wealth were accumulated.
Once again, shoot your mouth off and show what a jackass u are. For rich people, many report very little income taxes. This is a common knowledge, accept an idiot like u don't know this. Rich people have large accounting firms that shelter their income behind trusts, holding companies, write offs, tax loss vehicles, etc. Gecko and Old Goat only report a small fraction of their annual income. The simplest example of this is lets say a person owns 100% of a company A that is worth $1 billion, and the company earns $10 million a year. The person is an employee of the company, and is its president. The person request and draws a salary of $40,000 annually from the company. Therefore, on his yearly income tax, he reports $40K. Based on $40K that he earns a year, you mean to say u know he is worth $10 billion? U are a fucking idiot. Now, using this same example, lets say this man dies tomorrow. All his estate including his shares in company A goes to probate court. Guess what now, the judge and tax authorities can now open all his assets and say how much there is and tax him on $10 billion for estate duty purposes. SO, his $40K means nothing.
This is exactly what happened with Gecko. Gecko is the founding partner for Lee and Lee, a law corporation. SHe has x numbers of shares in the company. How many shares, no one knows because there is no estate duty. Lee and Lee is one of the most profiable law firms in singapore. For decades, they dominate the HDB conveyancing busines and earn billions $ just from this source alone. If Lee and Lee earns $100 million a year, and Gecko owns 50% of the shares, in practice her income should be $50 million per year. But because its a law corporation, she can simply request a salary fixed at $1 million, leave the rest in the company and let it ride as retained earnings. If there was an estate duty tax, we will know exactly how much money her shares are worth.
Its a very simple logic, try and wrap your head around it.