From The Washington Post:
The House voted Thursday to permanently extend a 45% 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
The bill passed by a 225 to 200 vote, all Republicans voting nay.
Under current law, the federal estate tax will disappear next year before returning in 2011 at a 55 percent top tax rate. Next year, absent this legislation, all estates would be subject to a 15 percent capital gains tax.
Democrats claim that they voted to make the estate tax permanent in order to make it easier for families and small business owners to do estate planning:
“In America, it’s not a sin to be rich nor is it a crime to die rich,” said Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo. “This bill gives our nation’s wealthiest families the ability to know exactly what their obligation to the nation that fostered their wealth will be, and it is fair and it is just.”
If you believe Polis when he says Democrats want the 45% estate tax rate to be permanent because it’s good for families, I have an ocean-front home in Boise, Idaho I want to sell you. Even for a politician this is astonishingly dishonest. If you look at the policy proposals of liberal Democrats over the past decade you’ll see very clearly that they in fact do think it’s a sin to be rich and an even bigger one to die rich and leave your hard-earned and previously-taxed wealth to your loved ones.
(Democrats apparently believe it’s more noble for taxpayers to bequeath their wealth to strangers.)
Forget the spin. House Democrats voted for the permanency of the estate tax because they want to cut-off any possibility that Republicans – who may gain a majority in the 2010 mid-term elections – will vote to eliminate the estate tax entirely.
Here’s what Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said:
The majority claims to be offering certainty to taxpayers and I suppose in a way they are – they are certainly repealing the hope of ever eliminating the death tax.
Related Posts:
- Estate Tax Planning: To Pull the Plug or Not to Pull the Plug, That is the Question
- Is the Estate Tax Necessary to a Fair Tax System or Merely Grave-Robbing?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Justin // Dec 4, 2009 at 11:18 am
Man, you are way off base.
Polis is rich enough where he will be subject to the estate tax, and it has mitigated the effects of inherited dynastic wealth because the rich are the most able to afford to pay the tax. if the Democrats are smart, they should implement an intangibles tax like FL had so that wealth is taxed all along instead of at times of transfer either due to death or gift.
2 Peter // Dec 4, 2009 at 11:35 am
Justin,
Thanks for visiting.
When you say I am “way off base” I assume you mean that you don’t agree with me and not that something I wrote in my blog post is factually incorrect.
There are many Americans like you who think it is perfectly alright to confiscate the property of their wealthy neighbors and spread it evenly among those who did not earn it. Obviously, I am not one of them.
Different strokes for different folks.
3 Income Tax Extension // Mar 31, 2010 at 11:07 am
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