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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...

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%.

First of all, let's call this trillion-dollar giveaway what it is - the Paris Hilton Tax Break. It's about giving billions of dollars to billionaire heirs and heiresses at a time when American taxpayers just can't afford it. The Republicans have brought out the Paris Hilton Tax Break in June because they're eager to make it an election issue in November. And I think that's fine. In fact, I'm eager for the American people to choose. Because if people want their government to spend one trillion dollars - an amount more than double what we've spent on Iraq, Afghanistan, and...

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...

Though America got where it is today by following a pattern of freedom and prosperity followed, Americans at a present political crossroads may be in danger of choosing instead a path that leads to inevitable demise, said Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson Monday in Marshalltown. Thompson, however, advocated adhering to the country’s foundational principles and doing what is right. “How often, when you do the right thing, it turns out to be good politics too?” he said to a full room at the Tremont on Main. At the core of his campaign, Thompson said he stands behind a federalism based...

Progressivism was the reform movement that ran from the late 19th century through the first decades of the 20th century, during which leading intellectuals and social reformers in the United States sought to address the economic, political, and cultural questions that had arisen in the context of the rapid changes brought with the Industrial Revolution and the growth of modern capitalism in America. The Progressives believed that these changes marked the end of the old order and required the creation of a new order appropriate for the new industrial age. There are, of course, many different representations of Progressivism: the...

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...

In all the publicity about their attack on Senator Joe Lieberman, it has gone almost unnoticed that the far left has also targeted some members of the Black Caucus for their support of highly selective Bush administration policies. This support often came about only after hard negotiations to win administration support for programs to help people in their districts. Having lived in Chicago for two decades I find it almost unimaginable that former Black Panther Bobby Rush could be challenged from his left, but he was. Cong. Rush’s vote for the energy bill upset the masters of the Internet’s political...

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...

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.

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...

Senators voted Thursday to reject a Republican effort to abolish taxes on inherited estates during an election year with control of Congress at stake. GOP leaders had pushed senators to permanently eliminate the estate tax, which disappears in 2010 under President Bush's first tax cut, but rears up again a year later. A 57-41 vote fell three votes short of advancing the bill. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the Senate will vote again this year on a tax that opponents call the "death tax." "Getting rid of the death tax is just too important an issue to give...

It doesn't matter if you are liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. There is no possible excuse for doing what Congress is poised to do this week: Abolish the estate tax. The federal government faces a future of expanding deficits. Thanks to the baby bust and medical inflation, spending is projected to rise by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2030, a growth equivalent to the doubling of today's Medicare program. What is the dumbest possible response to this? Take a source of revenue and abolish it outright. -snip- People often remark on the perversity of popular support...

This week the Senate is expected to vote on permanent repeal of the estate tax. With this vote, Congress will have an opportunity to finish the job it started five years ago. The estate tax -- or, as many of us prefer to call it, the death tax -- is a tax imposed on the transfer of assets or property from a deceased person to his or her heirs. This is one of the IRS's most painful taxes, as it hits families at the worst possible time, when they are dealing with the death of a loved one. Congress passed...

A decade-long drive to permanently repeal the estate tax is about to come to a head, but proponents are finding it surprisingly difficult to get their political football into the end zone. The repeal proposal may be an indirect casualty of Hurricane Katrina, which forced Senate leaders to postpone a vote on the plan in September, when hopes it would pass were high. Now, with the Senate poised to vote as early as this week, even some of the most ardent supporters of estate tax repeal predict they will come up short. Some of them are pushing an alternative that...

Executive Summary, found here: http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/1635.html In April 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to permanently repeal the federal estate tax (H.R. 8). Similar legislation is currently pending before the U.S. Senate (S. 420), and lawmakers are expected to finalize this legislation soon. This Special Report provides a brief history of the federal transfer tax system, and briefly examines the economics of estate taxation. .... This report examines two common arguments in favor of estate taxation. First, estate taxes are commonly assumed to be borne by wealthy taxpayers....Second, the history of the federal estate tax makes clear that the tax...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax. It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall...

A devastating hurricane hits the Gulf Coast. The war in Iraq claims almost 1,900 American lives with no end in sight in both casualties and cost. And red ink flows through short- and long-term federal deficit projections. Yet in the coming weeks, congressional leaders will move to abolish permanently the estate tax, America's only levy on concentrations of inherited wealth. Only after considerable pressure to respond to Hurricane Katrina and observe Chief Justice William Rehnquist's funeral did Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist back off from his determination to begin the estate tax debate immediately after Labor Day. The unseemly timing...

WASHINGTON - Congress' agenda for the remainder of the year has changed dramatically in the last few days, as lawmakers vowed to help Gulf Coast hurricane victims and senators faced a confirmation decision for a new chief justice — rather than an associate justice of the Supreme Court. ...In a short time, Bush promised, he also will send the Senate a nominee for an associate justice to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Parts of the planned schedule will be set aside, said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., including legislation on the estate tax.Congressional leaders were meeting with...

...A recent study by... found that over 20 years the Joint Committee on Taxation] has always underestimated the revenues from tax hikes, while overestimating the revenues that are lost when taxes are cut.... The Joint Tax calculations of the "cost" of death tax repeal have been particularly wild and inexplicable. In 2001, JCT famously estimated that repeal would cost the Treasury $600 billion over 10 years -- twice as much as the death tax actually raises. The Joint Tax whiz kids built into their computer models the behavioral effects of lawyers working the interplay between the death and gift tax...