“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:..”
Read the complete text now. |
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STATUS OF DEATH TAX REPEAL
July 2008
Dear Supporters:
While neither the presumptive Republican nor Democratic candidate for president has been very vocal about estate tax reform legislation, both have expressed a position:
Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) voted for full repeal of the estate tax in the past but then changed his position, deciding that repeal was not the right answer. Since changing his mind on repeal but before running for president in 2008, he supported a proposal by Senator Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) that the top rate be reduced to 35 percent and the exemption raised to $5 million per spouse in 2007. Now that McCain is vying for the White House, he instead supports a $5 million exemption per spouse and a 15 percent to 20 percent estate tax rate. He also suggests that the lifetime exemption should be indexed for inflation.
Senator Barack Obama (D-lllinois) has said little about the estate tax, but has indicated that he supports
a 45 percent rate and a $3,5 million exemption per spouse-with the exemption indexed for inflation. That is what the law will be in 2009. Obama thus favors freezing the tax at the 2009 level and not allowing repeal to occur in 2010.
Even though estate tax reform has not played a large role in the presidential debates, it will be an issue that the new president will have to face in 2009, as current law calls for a full repeal in 2010 and for 2011 to bring the return of the pre-2001 tax regime.
Both Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate know that they must act to avoid having just one year of repeal (often referred to as the "throw momma from the train" year). As a result, the consensus is that some legislation finally will emerge from Congress and be sent to the new president for his signature.
That compromise will be driven by the politics of both houses of Congress and estimates of how much revenue will be lost as a result of that reform. These estimates, in turn, will depend in part on which party controls the House and the Senate in 2009.
Patricia M. Soldano
President
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