March 8, 2004


Bill Gates Sr.
Chuck Collins
C/O Beacon Press
25 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2893

RE: “Wealth and Our Commonwealth”

Dear Mr. Collins and Mr. Gates:

I am writing this letter to bring to your attention a very grievous misstatement of fact on page 108 of the above book. You wrote:

“It is interesting to note that the most extreme proponents of repeal like Soldano advocate for maintaining ‘stepped-up’ basis at death even without the estate tax.”

I do not support an elimination of the estate tax without an elimination of the step-up in basis. I never have and I never would. It would not be fair for the appreciation to go untaxed forever. I believe that a tax should be paid on the appreciated value of the assets, but that it would be better to pay the tax on the appreciation when the appreciation has been realized by a sale or liquidation of the asset and the family has the liquidity to pay the tax, not just because someone has died. 

Even though we may not agree about the need for a tax at death, we can agree to disagree. But please do not continue to misstate my position on the elimination of the tax without the elimination of the step-up in basis.

Thank you.

Regards,


Patricia M. Soldano
Policy and Taxation Group