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In February 2011, Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew Carpenter was shot and killed while on patrol in Afghanistan. A lending company subsequently forgave his student loan, but now his parents are on the hook for a $28,000 tax bill as a result. U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., is outraged. And he's sponsoring a bill that would prevent the Internal Revenue Service from taxing loans to fallen service members that have been forgiven. The Andrew P. Carpenter Tax Act is one bill that all members of both parties can and should support. "It is a fitting way to fix a glaring problem...

Time magazine columnist and CNN host Fareed Zakaria says Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” tax reform plan is “sloppy and, in parts, bizarre.” So he offered his own version of a tax reform plan in his weekly column in Time. In it, Zakaria argues that Americans should give the federal government half of what they inherit. “I would enact a 50 percent inheritance tax, because nothing is more un-American than an inherited elite that perpetuates itself,” Zakaria wrote for the magazine.

Sometimes I just can't help pitying rich folks. Lately it's because the new tax law gives them yet another high-class quandary: Should they rush to give away everything to their kids during the next two years in order to save future estate tax? That's precisely what some financial pundits are now suggesting they do. Their advice grows out of the estate tax overhaul President Obama signed in December. It raises the tax-free limit on lifetime gifts from $1 million to a hefty $5 million ($10 million for married couples) before a gift tax applies. When it does, the rate is...

Mr. Frank's attitude seems to be that Americans need to justify why they should keep the money they inherit instead of the government needing to justify why they should be allowed to confiscate it. Video at link.

The Wall Street Journal has brought up yet another argument against the ebb and flow of the estate tax debate this week. The crux of it is that the uncertainty over how large the government vultures will be when they come to feast on your corpse has some business owners spending more preparing for the estate tax than their families will eventually lose. What’s unavoidable to many family businesses, however, is the cost of lawyers, accountants, family business advisers and business appraisers—and all that, owners say, has increased in the past decade as the estate-tax rate has continually changed. Trade...

I know that we are all supposed to love Warren Buffett as the Sage of Omaha, businessman and all-around good guy, but I keep reading stories that make me wonder. Here's a story about Warren Buffett, the estate tax, and the life insurance industry. Did you know that the life insurance lobby is actively lobbying to restore the estate tax?  Why would the life insurance industry care about that? It turns out that ten percent of life insurance industry revenue is related to the estate tax. Wealthy people take out life insurance in order to reduce estate taxes because...

A new report from a trade association representing family-owned businesses fighting against the estate tax says a giant life insurance lobby is a key force pushing against repeal of the estate tax as the tax creates demand for their insurance. The life insurance industry’s lobbying presence in D.C. is huge – larger than almost any other industry sector. According to the report, life insurers spent $10 million per month on lobbying in the first half of 2010. Only the pharmaceutical, electric utilities and oil and gas sectors, the heaviest of heavy hitters, spent more. Life insurers spent more on lobbying...

Director Randall Wallace’s Secretariat is a well-acted, exciting, and beautifully shot 1970s period piece about the Babe Ruth of thoroughbreds. It also dramatizes the immorality of the death tax. During a contentious scene in a generally upbeat movie, Penny Chenery Tweedy (the outstanding Diane Lane), her husband Jack (Dylan Walsh), and her brother Hollis (Dylan Baker) convene soon after the family patriarch loses his lengthy fight against Alzheimer’s. Even before they can organize his funeral, the three loved ones replace grief with acrimony as they contemplate an impending $6 million federal death-tax liability (equal to $29.5 million today). They must...

How Dare They! These self-serving, self-righteous thieves! Right before Congress slinked away to beg for their jobs – The U.S. Senate voted to pay Senator Byrd's family a $193,400 Death Bonus! Please, make no mistake about it. This was not a charitable act of good will. This was a blatant display of Washington cronyism at it's worst. Believe me, I would applaud a charitable act from our elitists in the Senate. But not one Senator took a thin dime out of his/her pocket. THEY TOOK IT OUT OF OURS! Senator Robert Byrd was no charity case. He was a U.S....

NEVADA –U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle was present at different publics events sponsored in Reno and Las Vegas by the American Family Business Institute (AFBI), a trade association representing family-owned businesses, ranches and farms. The events were hosted on Wednesday and Thursday by AFBI to witness the signing of the Death Tax Repeal Pledge between Sharron Angle andAFBI President Dick Patten. Angle discussed the tax’s impact on family businesses, jobs, and economic growth while signing AFBI’s “Death Tax Repeal Pledge”. By signing the pledge, Angle commits to vote for repeal of the estate tax, which her opponent, Senator Harry Reid,...

Two senators, a Democrat and a Republican, have reintroduced a proposal to reinstate the estate tax, which lapsed this year amid a row among lawmakers over taxing the wealthy when they die. Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln and Republican Senator Jon Kyl late on Tuesday reintroduced a plan to tax estates over $5 million at a rate of 35 percent. The estate tax that expired last year had taxed estates at a rate of 45 percent, above an exemption of $3.5 million for individuals and above $7 million for couples. There is no estate tax in 2010 because lawmakers last year...

All tax increases are bad, but there are some that are just plain unfair and punitive for no logical reason. The marriage penalty, the small business penalty, the retirement penalty, and the death penalty are in that category.Everyone except the most clueless “mushrooms� of our society know that tax rates will return to 2000 levels if the Democrat-controlled Congress does nothing to stop them.And they have shown a real skill for doing nothing but legislative carnage to this country in the last 18 months. That carnage has included the publicly unpopular Health Care Deform bill, the House-passed Cap and Trade...

He's a winner even in death. George Steinbrenner died six months after the federal estate tax expired, saving his wife and four children about half a billion dollars -- and essentially ensuring they can keep the Yankees. The tax, a 45 percent hit that lapsed in January due to lawmaker bungling, is set to be renewed in 2011 -- at 55 percent. Had he died in 2009, his family would have owed about $500 million; if he had survived until 2011, the bill would have been $600 million.

Repeal of the estate tax imposes significant costs on the taxpaying public and promotes concentrations of wealth that harm our democracy. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST

National anger at corruption and incompetence in Washington centers increasingly on a peculiar, profoundly maddening quirk of the Obama administration: its consistent, irrational impulse to reward bad behavior and to punish constructive conduct. The now powerful Tea Party movement began with an on-air rant in February, 2009 by Rick Santelli of CNBC, who complained of a costly new program to protect homeowners who had recklessly committed themselves to unaffordable mortgages; he suggested a “Chicago Tea Party” as a means of protest. Despite the indignation Santelli ignited, various Obama programs continue to tax Americans who’ve never missed a mortgage and send...

The most immoral of all taxes is the Death Tax. The Death Tax replaces the government as primary beneficiary, in-front of children, family, friends, and charities...

A former Adelaide mayoress left her daughters just $1.50 each from her $3.5 million estate because she believed they plotted to kill her mother. Valmai Roche died last year aged 81 and stated in her will that her daughter's should be left "30 pieces of silver of the lowest denomination" — or 30 five cent pieces, the Adelaide Advertiser reports. Daughters Deborah Hamilton, Fiona Roche and Shauna Roche were also left jewellery from Ms Roche's collection on condition they correctly answered questions relating to their mother's personal diaries. Two of the daughters are challenging the will in the South Australian...

The federal death tax today stands at zero percent, and it should stay there. Republicans and free-marketeers should kill the death tax once and for all before it roars back next January 1. If the Democratic Left defends the death tax, the Republican Right should beat them on it at the polls next November. If Congress does nothing, the death tax will be resurrected at 55 percent after a $1 million exclusion. According to the Wall Street Journal, Democrats wish to restore last year’s 45 percent death tax beyond a $3.5 million exclusion. Republicans seem to prefer a 35 percent...

SNIPPET: "The leadership of the Tea Party Express PAC came to the National Press Club on Thursday to herald its early successes and to unveil its expanded list of 2010 electoral targets." SNIPPET: "In an effort to show that the Tea Party Express PAC is not a “tool” of the Republican Party, but instead is an independent political force, Russo announced that the PAC is getting behind one conservative Democrat who has opposed President Obama’s agenda: Rep. Walt Minnick (ID-01). The decision to get behind Minnick is attention-grabbing because Republicans have fielded a strong candidate in that race: Iraq war...

Do not be fooled by the estate tax lapse of 2010. It is true that the estate tax--which imposed a 45% tax on all assets in excess of $3.5 million--was repealed for 2010 as part of the sweeping Bush tax cuts of 2001. But it is unlikely your estate will get a free pass. For one thing the repeal is only in place for one year. In 2011 the estate tax is slated to be reinstated with a higher rate of 55% and an exemption of only $1 million per estate. Also even though the federal estate tax is (as...

As the Vermont legislature struggles to find $150 million worth of budget cuts this year, an attempt to roll back two tax increases is running into opposition. At issue are the capital gains and estate taxes, primarily affecting upper income Vermonters. But there's evidence that the two taxes are driving wealthier residents out of state to places like Florida. The Vermont senate Economic Development committee met at Burlington city hall last week to hear testimony on repealing last year's increases on the state capital gains tax and the estate tax. Although farms were excluded from the death tax -- as...

Fiscal Policy: The new year saw the death of the estate tax. But like Freddie Krueger, this epitome of class warfare and wealth redistribution is sure to return to wreak havoc among the living. Once dubbed the "Paris Hilton" tax, the levy is supposed to target the inherited wealth of the super-rich who really didn't earn it or don't really need so much of it. Or so we're told. But at some point, even inherited wealth was created and taxed in its creation. The death tax is double taxation, and just because you can't take it with you doesn't mean...

Well, 2010 has arrived -- and because Congress devoted so much effort toward health care reform, we may have ourselves some death panels after all. While critics have dismissed Sarah Palin's "death panels" to dole out medical care as fiction, a tax loophole may in fact give the heirs of some wealthy people a financial incentive to make this new year their loved one's last. In 2001, then-President George W. Bush signed a law designed to phase out the estate tax -- a tax on the assets a deceased individual leaves behind. The law reduced the amount wealthy families were...

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...