Congress wants to permanent eliminate the estate tax. What is the impact to the Federal Government?

Answer 1

As has been the rule with this present Administration, the majority of the Tax burden is Squashing the Middle Class out. If there is not a great change soon, ie dissolving the Alternative Minimum Tax, there will only be two classes, The upper class who pay relatively small taxes and the poor who are in slavery and cannot even afford to house themselves...

Wake Up! Stand Up! Write your Congress people and Senators! Write Letters...............

Answer 2

The whole reason an estate tax was added in the first place was to prevent surfdom (where only a few owned property) as it existed in both England and Europe. The heavy tax on very rich properties, forces them to sell off some of the property, thereby breaking up monopolistic ownership. By maintaining the estate tax, individual states can't decide to eliminate the tax.

I do think family farms should be protected. However, the repeal of the tax is mostly about the greed of the very rich.

Answer 3

Net Estate Tax revenue for 2005 (IRS figures) is $21.7 billion. That's a pretty good chunk of change that needs to be made up. Given that we are currently drowning in defecit at record levels, dumping that income -- which is only paid by the wealthiest of taxpayers -- is not fiscally responsible.

The truth is that only a very tiny portion of the wealthiest estates are ever taxed and the exclusion is rising annually further reducing the numbers of estates that are taxed at all. If you die this year and your estate's net value is less than $2 million, your estate won't pay a dime in Federal Estate Tax.

Why should we let the richest of estates off the hook? Unless another means of collecting a similar amount of revenue from the same group replaces it, dumping the estate tax is just plain stupid.

Answer 4

Bad idea. That money has already been taxed. Pass it to the next generation, keep the economy moving and it will produce sales and income tax revenues.

This "tax the rich" malarkey is a red herring and does not make economic or practical sense. Keep the money working in the general economy (multiplier effect) where it will be taxed as a result of business activity.

Answer 5

Losing that tax money will not be a huge loss and can be made up easily in other places.


Good or bad I do not know.