Bill Nelson, Dem., joining with Kyl, Rep. to repeal the estate tax.

[madfloridian]

I have no clue why. Someone in the Florida forum wrote him, and he said he wanted to help small businesses and farmers. Is he not aware that this only covers the upper echelon of our country? Here is an article about it.

http://www.cbpp.org/5-25-00tax.htm

A key component of President Bush's tax package would repeal the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax by 2009. Repealing the estate tax is costly, reducing revenues for both the federal government and states, and would provide a massive windfall for some of the country's wealthiest families.

In 1997, the estates of fewer than 43,000 people — fewer than 1.9 percent of the 2.3 million people who died that year — had to pay any estate tax. The Joint Committee on Taxation projects that the percentage of people who die whose estates will be subject to estate tax will remain at about two percent for the foreseeable future. In other words, 98 of every 100 people who die face no estate tax whatsoever.

To be subject to tax, the size of an estate must exceed $675,000 in 2001. The estate tax exemption is rising to $1 million by 2006. Note that an estate of any size may be bequeathed to a spouse free of estate tax.

The vast bulk of estate taxes are paid on very large estates. In 1997, some 2,400 estates — the largest five percent of estates that were of sufficient size to be taxable — paid nearly half of all estate taxes. These were estates with assets exceeding $5 million. This means about half of the estate tax was paid by the estates of the wealthiest one of every 1,000 people who died."

And here is the press release from Bill Nelson's office. I don't like this. But I guess he has his reasons. His press release appears to mispresent what the estate really is about.

http://billnelson.senate.gov/news/details.cfm?id=244014&

WASHINGTON - - Two U.S. senators - one a Republican, the other a Democrat - on Thursday revived an effort to kill the so-called death tax on inherited estates.

Both senators - Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) - are longtime proponents of abolishing the tax that can allow the federal government to seize almost half a person's assets when he or she dies. The tax, they said, hurts families that inherit small businesses and farms.

Their bill would permanently repeal the estate tax at the end of this decade. It would do so then because a law passed as part of President Bush's tax cuts in 2001 gradually phases out the tax by 2010. But it allows the levy to come back to life in 2011, at an even higher rate. "

And here is an excellent explanation from the Washingotn Post earlier this year on how they are misrepresenting this tax.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/23/AR2005072300741.html?nav=rss_opinion

ONE OF THE chief arguments of those seeking permanent repeal of the estate tax is that it cruelly penalizes farmers and owners of small businesses whose heirs are forced to sell off their holdings to pay the tax. "In order to make sure our farms stay within our farming families, we need to get rid of the death tax once and for all," President Bush proclaimed in a speech last month to the Future Farmers of America.

This assertion, though, is more convenient myth than fact -- something that senators might consider when they're called on, perhaps as soon as this week, to vote on abolishing the tax. A new study by the Congressional Budget Office examined estate tax returns filed by farmers and owners of small businesses in 1999 and 2000. The numbers that owed estate tax, the CBO found, were paltry, and the number without enough cash on hand to pay the bill even punier: In 2000, for example, just 1,659 farm estates had taxes due, of which 138 didn't report enough liquid assets to cover their tax liability.

...."In other words, the image of the grieving heir packing up his hoe as he trudges away from the family farm is just that -- a powerful image but not an accurate one. Over the years, the discussion of the estate tax hasn't exactly been noted for its intellectual rigor. But members of Congress debating the issue now ought to look at the facts assembled by the CBO -- not the misinformation peddled by those maneuvering to make repeal permanent.

Bill Nelson, first the bankruptcy bill, then CAFTA, now this. I guess I need to make a call and send a link to a couple of articles.