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Group Calls for Extension of Federal Estate Tax Published on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009. In a December 17 letter to Senators, Americans for a Fair Estate Tax has urged legislators to extend the Federal Estate Tax citing a loss in vital tax revenue and incentive for charitable giving. December 17, 2009 Dear Senator, Given the serious economic problems the country faces today, the Senate's apparent decision to let the federal estate tax expire on Jan. 1, 2010 is incomprehensible. Unless Congress takes action, the estate tax will disappear in 2010 and then return at higher levels in 2011. The estate...

Next month, for one year only, the federal estate tax is set to go away. Don't break out the cyanide capsules just yet though, because Congress is likely to reinstate the tax retroactively sometime during 2010, as part of a permanent estate tax reform. When doing so, Congress should make sure to get the reform right - this means setting a high exemption so few taxpayers have to comply with the tax, and indexing the tax to inflation so it does not impact smaller estates over time. A temporary repeal is coming because of the structure of the 2001 Bush...

The House voted Thursday to permanently extend a 45 percent inheritance tax on estates larger than $3.5 million, canceling a one-year repeal of the tax set to begin next month. A similar effort is afoot in the Senate, but the health care debate there could preclude action on the estate tax before Congress breaks later this month for holidays. There are also disagreements among senators over the tax rate and the size of estates that should be exempt, further clouding the bill's prospects. Lawmakers, however, don't want to delay action until next year because they are wary of enacting retroactive...

The House votes 224-199 to cancel a one-year repeal of the estate tax, set to begin next month, and instead permanently extends the current tax, with a top rate of 45 percent on estates larger than $3.5 million.

Kevin Hancock simply wants to harvest trees - sustainably - and create jobs in the process. The federal government may put a stop to all that. His business, Hancock Lumber, has been in the family for six generations. It owns 30,000 acres of Maine timberland and employs 550 people. But Mr. Hancock already knows that when his elderly mother dies, he'll have to sell off huge swaths of land to pay the ensuing tax bill. He recently warned a Senate committee that, "Once it has been sold to a developer, it will be parceled off and will no longer be...

I’ve been struggling to understand the overheated rhetoric surrounding the proposal that allows Medicare to pay for end-of-life counseling. I think I get it now: It is all about the death tax. Here is the story the government doesn’t want you to know. The 2001 Bush tax cuts will repeal the estate tax next year, but only for a year. Starting in less than 18 months, estates in excess of $1 million will once again be taxed at a stiff 55 percent. This will cost the children of the very wealthy tens of billions of not-so-hard-earned dollars. And it creates...

While the Washington press corps was fixated last week on the latest developments surrounding President Obama’s trillion dollar co-pay in the guise of health reform, followed by backyard beer swilling, IRS bean counters quietly went about their business. Their mission? Find a way to pay for the massive zeroes this administration continues to add at the end of the government’s mounting debt. In what some privately likened to an ancient an archaeological find teeming with treasure, revenue agents discovered a potential $80 million golden pot of money – at the home of Michael Jackson. That’s what the Feds stand to...

Few taxes raise less revenue or make less sense than the federal estate tax. It is scheduled to be temporarily eliminated -- for 2010 -- only to reappear in 2011, and it has been a sore spot to family business owners since its inception. Research shows that these concerns are legitimate -- and, if anything, understated. Faced with the sunset provision, the White House would like to lock in the current tax rate permanently -- 45% of total assets over $3.5 million at the time of death. At the same time, some members of Congress are pressing to raise the...

The good news is that Congress realizes that the American people are not going to stand for a permanent 45% Death Tax.The bad news is . . .

The death tax is the issue that simply will not die. Fifteen years after Republican strategists put Democrats on the defensive by sticking that pejorative label on the federal estate tax, Democrats are still struggling with how to handle the levy on assets left behind — the one that conservatives portray as the Internal Revenue Service reaching beyond the grave. Studies show that the tax hits merely a sliver of wealthy American families. A proposal by President Obama would leave it at current levels, affecting only estates valued at more than $3.5 million for individuals and $7 million for couples....

From Art Laffer, economist and inventor of the Laffer Curve, comes an excellent and timely piece explaining why we should all care about the death tax, its effect on society and on people's behavior: Spend it in Vegas or Die Paying Taxes President Barack Obama has proposed prolonging the federal estate tax rather than ending it in 2010, as is scheduled under current law. The president's plan would extend this year's $3.5 million exemption level and the 45% top rate. But will this really help America recover from recession and reduce our growing deficits? In order to assess the pros...

Budget: Hidden in a footnote deep in the budget is a resurrection of the death tax. If you think this only affects rich people handing down their silver spoons to spoiled children, you're sadly mistaken.Part of the Bush tax cuts was a provision that would wind down the estate tax from its existing 55% to 45% in 2009 and then to zero in 2010. The estate tax had taken the majority of a dead person's estate valued at over $3.5 million for an individual or $7 million for a couple. Like the rest of the tax cuts, it was temporary....

For those dying to take advantage of next year's zero percent federal "death tax," they may want to kill those plans. President Obama's budget keeps the estate tax at its 2009 level, which means the government gets 45 percent of a dead person's estate valued over $3.5 million dollars or $7 million for a couple. Republicans argue this tax doesn't just strike the wealthy. "It destroys a lot of small businesses and a lot of family farms and ranches in America," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. "People who aren't wealthy, who may have built up value in land over generations...

Lawrence Summers, President Obama's chief economic adviser, declared recently that "Let's be very clear: There are no, no tax increases this year. There are no, no tax increases next year." Oh yes, yes, there are. The President's budget calls for the largest increase in the death tax in U.S. history in 2010. The announcement of this tax increase is buried in footnote 1 on page 127 of the President's budget. That note reads: "The estate tax is maintained at its 2009 parameters." This means the death tax won't fall to zero next year as scheduled under current law, but estates...

For Washington's tax writers, it is the best of times and the worst of times. On one hand, the alternative minimum tax, which has created political angst for years running, has already been "patched" for another year. On the other, a looming debate over the estate tax could be even more politically charged. Examining these two taxes -- with important similarities but a fundamental difference -- yields great insight into the dynamics of U.S. tax policy. Perennially "patched" to negate its unintended ensnaring of middle-income earners, the AMT has become the tax world's Sisyphean task. Its sizable cost -- and...

For Dale Allee, a second-generation cattle rancher in southern Colorado, the idiom that nothing is certain but death and taxes is now a reality. "I just turned 80 last week. You know what that means? That means I'm not going to be around here very long, and somebody's going to have to pay those taxes," said Allee, who fears federal estate taxes will thwart his plans to pass his 4,200-acre Pueblo County ranch to his children. Land-rich but cash poor, Western ranchers are lobbying Washington to exempt them from the estate tax, which can force heirs to sell their inheritance...

Contrary to popular opinion, the key line in understanding the movie Forrest Gump was not “life is like a box of chocolates.” It was “stupid is as stupid does.” For a stupid person, Forrest lived pretty smart. The so-called intelligent people around him? Not so much. And if you want to understand the ongoing fiscal soap opera that is Uncle Sam, you need to grasp a derivative concept – “stupid is as stupid taxes.” And on that score, the Obama Administration is getting off to a less than stellar start, IQ-wise. Stupid tax move number one: Turning the Internal Revenue...

The Senate Finance Committee will move within weeks on legislation to reverse that law, and Mr. Obama is expected to detail his estate-tax preservation proposal in his budget next month, congressional tax writers said. Under the Obama plan detailed during the campaign, the estate tax would be locked in permanently at the rate and exemption levels that took effect this year. That would exempt estates of $3.5 million -- $7 million for couples -- from any taxation. The value of estates above that would be taxed at 45%.

President-elect Barack Obama and congressional leaders plan to move soon to block the estate tax from disappearing in 2010, suggesting the levy might outlive the "Death Tax Repeal" movement that has tried mightily to kill it. The Democratic stance on the estate tax contrasts with Mr. Obama's reluctance to press forward with his campaign pledge to raise income-tax rates on top earners, which he worries could have an adverse economic impact during a recession. But Democrats are determined to act quickly to prevent the estate tax's scheduled repeal. Elimination of the levy on big inheritances was approved by Congress under...

While some people are still gushing over the victory of President-elect Barack Obama, and others are now grumbling about his early cabinet announcements, fiscal hawks are focused on the volatility of the stock market and the attempts to unthaw the frozen credit and cash-flow markets. But some of us are more concerned about the coming legislative insanity of the newly elected Congress. The Unfairness Doctrine and the Employee No Choice Act are leading the parade, but I must now alert you to the No Death Tax Holiday. The insanity of the previous two pending actions was discussed in my column...

Estate Tax Takes Shape In Campaign Talk By ARDEN DALE A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN NEW YORK -- Estate-tax talk on the campaign trail is helping resolve a very thorny tax problem for the rich. Making a plan to shield an estate from the federal death tax has been tricky for financial planners since the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 phased in a series of changes over the past few years. The future seems clearer now, though, as Senators Barack Obama and John McCain outline their plans for the tax. A new study by the Tax...

The citizens of Pittsburgh are getting an unpleasant lesson in the consequences of punitive taxation, courtesy of their beloved NFL franchise. Inside the Pittsburgh Steeler boardroom, a fraternal squabble is under way over future ownership—thanks in part to a sacking from the realities of estate and capital gains taxes. One of the league's iconic teams, the Steelers have been owned by the Rooney family since 1933. The five sons of the original owner, Art Rooney, control 80%—and they are getting into their 70s. With the team's value estimated at $700 million or more, the 45% federal death tax rate could...

It's becoming increasingly clear that the Rooney family is selling the Pittsburgh Steelers to avoid having to pay the death tax.

One current permathread on Big Orange is that Krugman and Obama are feuding or having a vendetta. Which, when you take a step back, is bizarre. That movement conservatives and Villagers like stone Bush enabler William Kristol, like David Brooks, Broderella, and Andrew Sullivan are all good with Obama isn’t even mentioned in passing by Obama’s fan base. And yet those same enthusiasts spend inordinate amounts of time vilifying Paul Krugman, a true progressive who was there for us from the earliest dark days of the Bush regime. Curious. What’s really happening? Krugman doesn’t have a problem with Obama; Krugman...

Death and Whoopi's Taxes December 10, 2007; Page A18 We don't normally look to Tinsel Town liberals for insights on U.S. tax policy, but Whoopi Goldberg's comments on the estate tax last week deserve more attention. During a discussion of Republican Presidential candidates on ABC's "The View," which the comedian co-hosts, Ms. Goldberg said, "I'd like somebody to get rid of the death tax. That's what I want. I don't want to get taxed just because I died." The studio audience started applauding, but she wasn't done. "I just don't think it's right," she continued. "If I give something to...

Hi, my name is Annabelle, and I'm a taxaholic. It's hard for me to admit this, but I think it's time to own up: I'm powerless over the idea that taxes are not a bad way to fund programs that might do some good for our country. My addiction has really gotten the better of me now that Bush has vetoed Congress's main social spending bill, which was to fund admittedly unworthy social endeavors like cancer research, mine safety, job training and Head Start. I'm sure you've all heard this tale over and over again. My problem started at parties...

McLean, VA - Senator Fred Thompson announced today that Jack Faris, former President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, will be the National Chairman of "Small Business Leaders for Fred Thompson." "I am excited to be supporting Senator Thompson, an old friend and fellow Tennessean, because he understands the role that small businesses play in our economy. Senator Thompson's record in the U.S. Senate speaks for itself, long a supporter of lower taxes, which allow Americans to invest more in our economy, and a strong advocate for increased access and flexibility in health care and...

As part of a campaign stop planned for Iowa last week, Rudy Giuliani's Des Moines office called Deb and Jerry VonSprecken to see if they'd host an event at their farm. They agreed. After several days of planning and a security check, though, Deb was told to call Giuliani's New York office: "They wanted to know our assets," she revealed, and added that she and Jerry have a modest 80 acre farm and raise cattle. Later she received a call from Tony Delgado at the Des Monies location. "Tony said, 'I'm sorry, you aren't worth a million dollars and he...

Millions of entrepreneurs, teachers and parents with children in college have a financial stake in whether Congress, in the dying hours of Republican rule, revives tax breaks that expired 11 months ago...Residents of Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming - each without an income tax - will miss out on an average $1,500 deduction for state and local sales taxes...Before the election, Republicans tried unsuccessfully to link the tax cuts to a bill that would reduce the estate tax, which most Democrats find unacceptable, and raise the federal minimum wage, which many Republicans dislike.

The Times-Reporter and three other Copley Ohio newspapers will be sold by The Copley Press as a reaction to contractions in the newspaper business and debt resulting from the taxes on the estate of Helen K. Copley, who died in 2004. The other daily papers in Copley Ohio are The Independent in Massillon and The Repository in Canton. Copley Ohio includes one weekly paper, The Suburbanite in Green. Copley’s four Illinois daily newspapers, in Springfield, Peoria, Lincoln and Galesburg, are also subject to sale, though a Copley spokesman said the Ohio and Illinois papers also could be part of “possible...

The Republican National Committee provided the money for a television advertisement running in Tennessee that Some say plays to racist fears. Jennifer Peebles, the political editor at the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville, speaks with Susan Stamberg about the ad. All Things Considered, October 25, 2006 · The election is less than two weeks away in a year when control of the House and Senate is at stake. One campaign tool that gets rolled out every election year at this time is the shocking campaign ad, and this year is no different. Just when you think you've seen it all, political...

This summer, the Senate fell short of the super-majority needed to bring to a vote a measure permanently repealing the estate tax. This means the current reduced-rate estate tax will revert to the full pre-2001 rates of up to 55 percent by 2011 unless other action is taken. The Senate's lack of action prompted the House to pass the Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act (H.R. 5970), which would extend estate tax relief beyond 2010, but would not eliminate the tax. This is unfortunate. The evidence shows that the estate tax does little to redistribute wealth and may...

NCPA Report Shows Inheritances have little effect on Wealth Inequality As Congress continues debate over reduction and possible elimination of the estate tax, a new study from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) undermines the chief argument made by proponents of the tax - that estate taxation prevents the concentration of wealth in the hands of financial dynasties. The report shows that the contribution of inheritances to the distribution of wealth in the U.S. is surprisingly small. "It is commonly assumed that wealthy people inherit much of their wealth," said Jagadeesh Gokhale, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute...

One of Tony Blair's closest political allies has issued an explosive demand for the Government to scrap inheritance tax. Stephen Byers, the former transport secretary and a leading Blairite "outrider", claims that the tax, which brought in a total of £3.3 billion last year, is "a penalty on hard work, thrift and enterprise". Writing in The Sunday Telegraph today, he brands it a "tax on death" and calls for it to be abolished. His remarks will be seen as the political equivalent of lobbing a grenade under the door of Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, who jealously guards all areas of...

It can be universally agreed upon that those who create wealth are more crucial to a countries economy than those who inherit wealth. It follows that we should substitute as much of the federal income tax possible with taxes taken from inheritance. Like Ben Franklin said, nothing should be certain except for death, taxes and the death tax

  From the Desk of Mark Stephens, Executive Director, NRSCDo you have your wallet handy? Well, you better . . . . . . Let me tell you why.The LCLI (Liberal Cost of Living Increase)Anytime liberal Democrats take the reins of government, the American people must pull out their wallets and pay a price. It's the automatic Liberal Cost of Living Increase - the LCLI. You see it happen at the local level, state level and at the federal level.Americans are feeling the squeeze of rising energy prices and escalating health care costs - but the LCLI will dwarf...

Despite the fact that the minimum wage bill that didn't pass the cloture vote was due to the fact that it was tied directly to a massive rollback of the estate tax and $38 billion in other tax breaks, we are going to get a barrage of the "democrats are filibustering the minimum wage hike" nonsense. With all of that, it is painfully obvious that any increase in the minimum wage should be a stand alone bill as opposed to part of something that would be as Senator Durbin said "the worst special-interest bill I have seen in my time...

Title should be "DEMOCRATS REJECT MINIMUM WAGE -Abandon Care of the Poor"

Democratic senators blocked their own goal on Thursday of raising the U.S. minimum wage for the first time since 1997 after Republicans added a huge tax break for the rich to the legislation, actions sure to reverberate in this election year. On a 56-42 vote, the Republican-led Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed to clear the way for final congressional passage of the minimum wage increase and a big cut in inheritance taxes for wealthy Americans. The hard-fought battle was a defeat for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, a possible 2008 Republican presidential candidate, who crafted...

Around 2 A.M. on Saturday the House of Representatives passed the Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act. The bill represents the latest compromise (sell-out, really) in a fight that until a couple of months ago was supposed to be about repealing the federal death tax completely and permanently. Now we’ve got a House bill that keeps the tax permanently on the books — with the estate-planning headache of a staggered phase-in — and hikes the federal mandated minimum wage by over 40 percent. How did things go so wrong?

I.R.S. to Cut Tax AuditorsBy DAVID CAY JOHNSTON Published: July 23, 2006 The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans, specifically those who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer parts of their fortunes to their children and others. The administration plans to cut the jobs of 157 of the agency’s 345 estate tax lawyers, plus 17 support personnel, in less than 70 days. Kevin Brown, an I.R.S. deputy commissioner, confirmed the cuts after The...

I noted with interest the letter to the editor from Mr. Ed Outlaw with his concerns for the Fair Tax plan. I have promoted the Fair Tax for several years now, and I have rarely come across anyone that was such a proponent of the present tax system. The Income Tax is out of control, inefficient, and penalizes U.S. business and manufacturing competing within an escalating global economy. The Fair Tax is a simple alternative method to fund the Federal Government that is fair, simple, and visible. As a by-product, it just happens to solve some very serious economic problems...

Now that Congress has returned from its Independence Day recess, Republican senators will try again to declare America permanently independent of the death tax. A June 8 bid to scrap this levy fell three votes short, when Democrats (and Republican renegades Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Ohio’s George Voinovich) filibustered. If abolitionists can secure three more votes than the 57 they mustered (opposite 41 opponents), a majority of senators would kill this odious tax for good.

According to sources familiar with the prep sessions with Paulson, the former Wall Street executive and well-known supporter of and financial contributor to Democrats could not get in line with the Bush administration's support for ending the estate or "death" tax, and permanent extension of the capital gains tax and other tax cuts that are due to expire in the next three years.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire Warren Buffett on Monday called for U.S. lawmakers to retain the estate tax, after announcing plans to leave more than $37 billion of his own fortune to charity, not his children. Buffett spoke after agreeing to sign over roughly $30.7 billion of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, run by the Microsoft Corp. chairman and his wife, and another $6.4 billion to foundations on behalf of his late wife Susan and his children. "I would hate to see the estate tax gutted," Buffett said at a Manhattan news conference with...

Mr.Buffett. As an avowed supporter of the estate tax, Mr. Buffett could have let the government take its share of his estate after he dies. But just as Mr. Buffett has accumulated his vast wealth without paying much personal income tax, he has found a way to avoid the tax man in this maneuver as well, even writing in his letter to Bill and Melinda Gates that a condition of the gift is that the foundation “must continue to satisfy legal requirements qualifying my gifts as charitable and not subject to gift or other taxes.” On the estate tax, watch...

WASHINGTON - The House voted Thursday to cut taxes on inherited estates and relieve thousands of heirs from paying tax collectors beginning next decade. The 269-156 vote, just a few months before an election with control of Congress at stake, saw majority Republicans temporarily setting aside their ambition to abolish the tax. Instead, they voted to exempt from taxation individual estates up to $5 million and couple's estates up to $10 million, while also blunting the impact on even richer families. The compromise measure now goes to the Senate. The White House called the bill "a step in the right...

Two weeks ago, the Senate killed an effort to repeal the federal estate tax on multimillion-dollar fortunes. The "no" votes were a stand for budget sanity and basic fairness. But the pro-repeal camp doesn't want to take no for an answer. Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed an estate-tax cut that is a repeal in everything but name. The so-called compromise would exempt more than 99.5 percent of estates from tax, slash the tax rates on the rest and cost at least $760 billion during its first full decade. Of that, $600 billion is the amount the government would have...

WASHINGTON - The House's top tax writer revealed a proposal Monday to reduce taxes on inherited estates and rewrite a quirky law that repeals the tax for only one year. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., introduced the bill after Senate Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee asked House GOP leaders for help reducing the estate tax before this fall's midterm elections. Frist lost a bid this month to push forward legislation repealing the tax, unable to overcome opposition from most Democrats and a pair of Republicans. Under President Bush's first tax cut, the estate tax decreases...

WEEK AND A half ago, Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas took to the Senate floor to decry the estate tax as unfair. "I, for one, intend to fight for these family businesses, fight for these communities and fight for these jobs in rural America," she preached. It was all very moving. Especially if you stand to inherit an enormous fortune. That same day, Lincoln again appeared on the Senate floor, this time to decry the lack of funding for federal anti-hunger programs. This too was unfair. Lincoln was particularly nonplused by the counter-argument that there was insufficient money for...