They say that the only certain things in life are death and taxes. Well, due to the budget deficit and national debt crises, now we can be sure of taxes after death, too! And in some cases, there’s quite a lot to tax. Today Forbes released their list of the most fabulously wealthy deceased celebrities, including Michael Jackon, who earned $145 Million last year, and Elizabeth Taylor, who earned $210 Million, proving that while you can’t take it with you, you certainly can keep raking it in anyway even after you’ve passed on. (In some cases, celebrities earn far more after death than they did while they were alive! And the Michael Jackson Thriller video, where he is made-up to look like a zombie, was clearly an attempt to cash in on this trend early.)
Some celebrities on this list are earning yearly sums in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and hearing of this posthumous windfall, President Obama has announced his plans to raise taxes on the dead, saying: “Death is just an excuse the wealthy use as a way to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Well, they couldn’t cheat death, and they can’t cheat the taxman either!” Republicans have countered, however, claiming this stated policy “…brings new meaning to ‘taxed to death’!” And they continued on to say: “President Obama is not only satisfied with taxing the rich while they’re alive; now he wants to tax them from beyond the grave as well!”
Countering President Obama’s announcement, Mitt Romney announced today he plans to cut taxes to the dead, claiming they are creating even more jobs than living rich people, and that this higher tax rate may lower their job creation even below that of the living rich. At a campaign rally held in an affluent cemetery, attended by hundreds of the once-living wealthy, Romney said: “President Obama wants to kill jobs even after death! He’s buried America in debt, and so now he proposes those buried in America should have to pay for it!” He went on to say that if the dead can’t take their wealth with them after death, Democrats shouldn’t be allowed to take it either, since they didn’t earn it; and he likened such a move to “stealing from the dead”, which might even risk triggering the zombie apocalypse.
President Obama’s new tax on the dead will even go so far as to include taxing the coins on a corpse’s eyes, which many psychics have claimed will prevent the souls of the dead from crossing over into the afterlife, and may end up trapping their souls here on Earth to wander endlessly as malevolent ghosts seeking revenge through the relentless haunting of the living. This is apparently what has been happening in all those Paranormal Activity movies, claim Republican economists; but Democrats retorted that once the zombie apocalypse starts, it won’t matter much what the ghosts do after that. This seemed to be a tacit admission that the president’s new tax policy would indeed cause the zombie apocalypse, but the administration walked that back a little bit later when questioned by frightened citizens, with the claim that humanity will be destroyed soon by something foretold long ago anyway, and that the president’s new tax policy is unrelated to that upcoming event.
Interestingly, this new tax plan does not appear to be sitting well with some dead celebrities. Numerous spiritual mediums claim they have received messages from some extremely high-earning departed celebrities via Ouija board stating they will refuse to communicate with the living any longer if President Obama is re-elected, which threatens to kill thousands of jobs in the psychic/medium ghost communication field. This warning is reminiscent of the letters some corporations are sending to their employees ahead of the upcoming presidential election. But this threat notwithstanding, the psychics & mediums union still supports and solicits its members to vote for Barack Obama.
Here’s the list of dearly departed celebrity taxable income:
