Indy/Dem/whatever US Senate wannabe Brian Bengs is out on facebook crowing about a passage in a recent SD Searchlight Article how “he wants to deny the majority.” Like that’s a good thing. And in at least one case, he wants to deny the vast majority of South Dakotans something they’ve weighed in on already – freedom from the inheritance tax.
South Dakotan’s distaste for the inheritance tax a.k.a., the Death Tax, is long on the record. In fact, there was even a ballot measure to outlaw the death tax in the year 2000 to repeal and outlaw the death tax. At the ballot in November 2000, it passed on a vote of 80.13 to 19.87. Less than 20% of voters said they want to be taxed upon their demise.
Yet, with apologies to the Beatles, Brian Bengs wants to tax the pennies on your eyes.
In Washington US Senator John Thune has long championed getting rid of the Death Tax at the federal level, and has gone into great detail about how it affects everyday South Dakotans, as he did in this column from 2025:
Death tax proponents talk as if it only affects the extremely wealthy, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The death tax can sweep up those who have very little money in the bank. Take for example a family farm or ranch, which are often cash-poor businesses. They might have substantial-looking assets on paper, but the vast majority of that is land and farming equipment, and a small fraction of it is money in the bank.
So what happens when a farmer or rancher dies and his estate is subject to the tax? There’s a very good chance that his liquid assets – in other words, the cash that he has available in the bank – won’t come close to covering the tax bill from the federal government. The only alternative for his heirs in that case may be to start selling off land or farm equipment to pay the tax. They may be able to keep the farm – just a smaller version of it – or they may have to sell it off entirely. It’s the same plight that many ranches and small businesses face as well.
(It’s worth noting that Thune has been supported in his efforts by Senator Mike Rounds, who Bengs seeks to remove from office.)
While Thune and Rounds have been talking about ending the death tax once and for all, Brian Bengs thought differently, and wrote how he actually wants to penalize those who inherit things.:
Currently, the tax system rewards passive income from capital—dividends, capital gains, and inherited wealth—more generously than income earned through labor. This disparity undermines the principle of meritocracy and fuels the rampant economic inequality that now exists.
…
Rebalancing the tax code to favor labor would mean increasing taxes on capital income to be more aligned with wage income, eliminating loopholes such as the carried interest exemption, and implementing wealth taxes or inheritance taxes that prevent dynastic accumulation of capital.
Read Bengs’ words from just a few months ago here.
He wants to “prevent dynastic accumulation of capital” in South Dakota? Is he kidding? Has he never talked to a family farmer who is just trying to keep the family farm operation intact?
It has long been accepted that the estate tax forces families to sell generational farms, ranches, and small businesses to pay the IRS. Because the inheritance tax counts the value of land along with cash – which forces families to break up farms. And is opposed by more than 80% of South Dakotans.
So when Brian Bengs talks about “denying the majority” – that’s what he’s referring to. He wants to deny the majority of South Dakotans things they’ve voted on decades ago because it doesn’t fit with his liberal Bernie Sanders sensibilities.
His true colors are showing. Voters need to be aware.