If Adam Lerner gets his way, there will be an even more onerous death tax, depriving people who have accumulated wealth (which in most cases already has been taxed once) from passing it on to their heirs.

We suggest that Lerner set a good example and sign a document waiving and declining to accept any inheritance.  We will be happy to keep it on file for him.

Opinion: Increase the estate tax to fuel campus diversity

As part of the fiscal cliff deal passed in the first days of 2013, the nation’s federal estate tax rose from 35 percent to 40 percent on estates over an inflation-adjusted $5 million.

Without Congressional action, these rates would have automatically reverted to 55 percent on estates over $1 million, but Democrats ultimately caved to only a marginal increase.

The distribution of wealth in our country plays an enormous role in diversity of class on our campuses.

With current levels of inequality, attending a top four-year university is far more difficult for low-income students than their high-income counterparts — not solely because of cost, but also because of the lower quality of the high schools they are more likely to attend, and the lack of investment their parents can afford in extracurricular activities.

A Georgetown University study of the class of 2010 at nearly 200 of the nation’s most prestigious universities found that while 67 percent of students came from the highest-earning quarter of American families, only 15 percent came from the nation’s bottom half.

Despite the fact that the estate tax doesn’t address the advantages students of students from an affluent background, it can serve as an equalizer between generations, preventing large amounts of untaxed wealth from transferring to those who did nothing to earn it — but win the lottery of birth.