If taxed without the ability to direct its expenditure, there is a feeling of taxation without representation. This is also why conservatives want to de-regulate campaign finance (except when it benefits liberals), and to frame it as a 1st Amendment, free speech issue. That gives them more influence over elections and legislators (access is an important thing to buy), and thus the expenditure of their tax dollars.
Question: How, then, can we have an effective tax which meets the following criteria?
1. Most equitable.
2. Generates sufficient tax revenue to cover national needs.
3. Does not create or preserve an elite.
The question of estates is problematic. On the one hand, one wants to create security for their heirs. On the other hand, we cannot have a meritocratic nation - one based upon (economic) class mobility where "one can be anything he wants to be; the poorest can grow up to be President" - if an hereditary (economic) aristocracy is controlling the wealth, and its outlets. The "older" the money, the more its owners feel, and act upon, a sense of privilege because of "who they are."