The Death Tax Needs to Stay Dead

by Curtis Coleman: The death tax expired at midnight on December 31, 2009. But don't look for its obituary in today's newspaper, because it is not expected to stay dead. Since 1916, Americans have been subject to a blatant redistribution of wealth called the “federal estate tax.” Also called the “death tax”, this is a tax you are required to pay when you inherit an amount above certain limits from your parents or family. The tax rate can be as high as 55 percent. It is not uncommon for heirs to have to sell the inherited assets just to pay this tax. In other words, the federal government gets the majority of your inheritance – not you.

For instance, more than a dozen family-owned timber farms no longer exist in Arkansas because families had to sell their farms to big out-of-state corporations to pay death taxes. Hundreds of Arkansas jobs were lost because this tax targets the capital used by family business owners and farmers to create jobs.

The 2001 tax act began the phase-out of the estate tax. The amount of assets exempt from the tax went up over the years, while the tax rate on bigger amounts went down. At midnight on December 31, 2009, the death tax disappeared – for one year only. If nothing is done, the estate tax returns in 2011 under 2001 rules. Then you will be able to shelter $1 million from the estate tax, while larger amounts will be taxed at a maximum rate of 55 percent.

The Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that nearly 600,000 families will be subject to the death tax over the following 10 years. With a tax rate as high as 55%, former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin estimates small businesses would be forced to reduce their payrolls by more than 500,000 workers [1]. This would be a disaster for an economy still deep in recession.

Although this tax may be the most blatant example of the federal government’s intrusive efforts to redistribute the hard-earned wealth of its citizens, repeal of this tax is not about protecting the wealthy. This is about creating jobs and protecting working families. With our unemployment the highest it’s been in 26 years, Holtz-Eakin found that Congress could create more than a million new jobs just by acting now to permanently repeal the federal death tax.

The permanent repeal of this counterproductive and destructive tax would create thousands of new jobs in Arkansas and help Arkansas’ working families. And the federal government’s tax revenues would actually increase, because the taxes generated by the new jobs created will actually exceed the amounts that would have been collected from death taxes.[2]

I appreciate Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s thus far unproductive efforts to moderate the impact of this onerous tax. If Sen. Lincoln really wants to protect Arkansas families and farms, she will forcefully support the permanent repeal of the death tax. The time for compromise on this immoral and counterproductive tax has passed. The death tax needs to be permanently put out of our misery.
[1] Holtz-Eakin, Doug; “Changing Views of the Estate Tax: Implications for Legislative Options”; February 2009.
[2] Entin, Stephen, “Economic Impact of the Estate Tax: Effects of Various Possible Reform Options,” American Family Business Foundation, June 2009, page 3, www.nodeathtax.org/files/AFBF_Entin_2009.pdf.

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