Senate to Vote on Repealing Estate Tax

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans will push for a vote this week on permanently repealing the estate tax even though the GOP appears to lack enough support to get past Democrats' objections.
...
A small group of Republicans and Democrats has worked for months on a compromise that would limit the tax, called the "death tax" by its critics, to only the wealthiest families.

Farming, ranching and business organizations that want the tax removed are keeping close watch. They want Senate GOP leaders to gauge support for repealing the tax permanently before moving ahead with any compromise.

"We believe it would be a serious mistake, and exceptionally difficult to again explain to small business, if a compromise is advanced without first giving the small business community the opportunity to actively put their resources to the task of delivering the votes for full repeal," a coalition of groups wrote Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Lobbyists and lawmakers acknowledge they are several votes short of the 60 needed in the Senate to clear potential Democratic obstacles to a permanent repeal. The House passed a bill in April that would abolish the tax.

link

[n2doc]

1. Why don't they just repeal all taxes

I mean, those on rich people? I'm sure our economy would really roar then!:sarcasm:

[stray cat]

2. The estate tax should not be eliminated.

It doesn't kick in accept with the wealthiest of families. Most farms and small businesses have been exempt from it for years. The sole purpose to eliminate it is to establish a permanant wealthy ruling class that will never have to work a day in their life to maintain their status and power.

[havocmom]

6. But what about the children of the richest 4% of the population affected?

The pitiful rich brats would have to pay taxes on unearned income when their parents die.... Woe! Woe!. Think of the childern... We have to do it for the children. :sarcasm: to the 9th degree.

The rich are doing better than ever in America while everyone else is losing ground at an astonishing rate. More $heckles for the top 4% does NOTHING to help America and does put even more burden on the working people.

Tell the rich we are tired of supporting their idle lifestyle. Goddam Corporate Welfare Queens need to start paying up for what America does for them!

[brentspeak]

9. Well put (n/t)

[bemildred]

3. I'm certainly glad they have time for this stuff.

Tearing themselves away from violent video games, gay marriage, abortion, the war against drugs and/or terror, and renewing the Patriot Act to try to help out "small business".
:sarcasm:

[Eric J in MN]

4. Please email your Senators to keep the Estate Tax.

People who inherit fortunes should have to pay taxes.

[mikehiggins]

5. Once again, Dems don't understand the GOPuke view of compromise

Just like the Taliban, or the National Socialists, or the Bolsheviks, the GOPukes view compromise as simply a step towards the absolute implementation of their goals. National Dems, especially those within the Beltway, and MOST especially those in Congress, seem to be hung up on the old-fashioned, non-new-reality idea of compromise, i.e. a meeting of minds during which several points of view can be effectively reconciled, even though none of the parties get everything they start out looking for.

Here we have Frist specifically pointing out their strategy but there will inevitably be Beltway Dems who wink an eye and claim the bad Doctor is just playing to the audience. Again, reference has to be made to Kissinger's legendary piece describing how the establishment could not conceive of a situation in which Hitler and his goons ACTUALLY MEANT what they were saying. This, in no small degree, is how the right wing got to the point they are at right now; the left and the liberals just couldn't believe they were serious, and couldn't believe the voters would go for it. Well, they were and are, and the voters did.

As long as our supposed leadership can't grasp that simple concept, that the right means what it says, and says what it means, our side will always be playing catch-up (i.e.losing) innings.

We need new leaders from OUTSIDE the Beltway who aren't conditioned into this self-destructive mindset. Dean, Clark, others, all should be given priority in considering who our 2008 candidate should be. Whoever it is, he or she MUST NOT be a District insider. We cannot win like that.

[Yupster]

7. The Dems have talked about a compromise

position of around $ 5 million. That would be a very reasonable proposal and the Republicans would be stupid to turn that offer down.

[natrat]

13. i think thugs more concerned with the 500 million crowd

[pfitz59]

8. Protecting the Aristocracy....

"When in the course of human events....". We fought one revolution against hereditary rule. Don't these pols get it? They're setting the stage for the collapse of Democracy! The estate tax is one of the best tools to "level the playing field". Earned income, through intellectual or physical labor is a boon to society. Unearned income is a bane! Does the nation really need another generation of Dan Quayles and Dubya's?

[brentspeak]

10. No Democrat should vote "yes" to this

I remember a few years ago when the Republicans were pushing for the temporary repeal of the estate tax. They persuaded some midwest farmer to drive his tractor up to the Capital steps as some PR stunt meant to highlight the "plight" of farmers who are subject to the estate tax. Only problem was - 98% of farmers are exempt from the estate tax already.

[fujiyama]

12. The Estate tax

is actually one of the more egalitarian taxes around. It doesn't build up wealth in the family.

Of course, Bush has a lot to lose by not getting it passed, as do Cheney, and the rest of this cabal...and every repuke elected to congress.

And they've marketed it brilliantly in recent years calling it the "death" tax...and it's worked to some extent, except no more than 2-5% of the population would be helped by this.

[stepnw1f]

11. Republicans Are Dangerously Greedy

Which also means, dangerously stupid or negligent to the Constitution.

[bassman79]

14. Hard to feel sorry for the brats, but...

is it much better that the money goes into the gov't coffers to fund pork projects and the war machine?

[mbperrin]

16. Only 27 estates paid one dime of this tax last year.

Anyone with a shred of estate tax planning knows that no net taxes are ever paid on this. And it is not a death tax. The dead person is gone. This money-valued property, including cash, produces income. This asset now belongs to someone else. THEY pay tax to acquire it. Try buying a used car without paying a tax on it. But no one says that's a death tax, even if the old owner is dead. It's just a sales tax, even though sales tax was paid on it once when new. The same crybabies (who just about always get what they want) make the same stupid argument about double taxation of corporate dividends. So what? All income travels in a circle and is taxed multiple times. ONLY rich bullshit artists are able to turn this into a travesty, an unfair thing for only them.

The 1950's, rather a good time for this country in general, had a top tax rate of 70%. Bring it back. Pay our bills. Stop borrowing money in insane proportions.

Stop now and take a breath..........

[lostnfound]

29. Do you have a link on that?

On the 27 estates comment? I find that very hard to believe.

[mbperrin]

30. Sorry it took me a while to get back - we had a family emergency.

And in my haste, I did make an error: here's what was said:

"And here's a stunning rebuke to those GOP hypocrites who preach fiscal responsibility while increasing our debt burden for future generations to bear: "All but 27 farmers left enough liquid assets to pay taxes owed, and the CBO hinted that the actual number might be zero." That means we may well be looking at zero farmers affected by an estate tax whose abolition is incessantly justified by the purported threat it represents to the very existence of family farming in America."

http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20050711/cm_thenation/75336

a bit more:

"According to Johnston, the CBO study contradicts assertions that the estate tax burdens family farms. Its findings show that "the number of farms on which estate tax is owed when the owners die has fallen by 82 percent since 2000, to just 300 farms, as Congress has more than doubled the threshold at which the tax applies."

So actually 300 farms paid the tax, with 27 lacking liquidity to do so. Sorry for the rush and the delay. The big point really is that a very tiny few are affected here, and this is being spun as some sort of "Average Joe" bill, which it is far from being.

(I had read the original in the NY TIMES some time back, but that piece is archived now and FOR SALE, of course, so I found this other link with the same info).

Thanks!

[expatriot]

17. yes, it is much better....

because only around 25 per cent of it goes into the war machine. The big picture here is the GOP's relentless war against the public sector, to starve it, to destroy it so the weakened spoils can be devoured by the corporate state. Even the "war machine" is a gerat example of this... they go into war/occupation situations that the government's armed forces are unable to bear so they drain the public coffers with payments to multi-national corporations to do things that were done by the military itself before. (i.e. build bridges, prepare meals for troops, on and on).

[Demeter]

21. Yes It IS

It is better to spread the manure around the farm, then let it pile up in one place, stinking and breeding flies.

[liberaliraqvet26]

23. better them pay for it than us....

we are already paying with blood

[expatriot]

15. at what amount our farm and ranch estates taxed?

I had always heard that the amount at which farm and ranch estates are taxed is at a considerably higher level than other estates (which right now is 15 million) yet the article makes no mention of it.

The estate tax is one of the greatest forms of taxation in my opinion.

on edit... let me clarify... because of course the greatest forms of taxation in one's opinion are those which you do not pay :)... but more than that... it is a small "check" against the establishment of aristocratic wealth, an ideal of the America that lured immigrants here was that "in AMerica, it doesn't matter who your father is...." obviously that is not true but the estate tax at least IN A SMALL WAY, keeps to this idea. People born into advantageous situations already have so advantaged that forfeiting a chunk of daddy's billions does not put them at a disadvantage.

[liberaliraqvet26]

18. This is insane...

do real americans have any idea how few people pay this tax?

What about a partial repeal of the AMT for the middle class? Shouldn't that come first.

[Yupster]

27. I paid it

My aunt never married, had a good job and saved money so when she died she had an estate of about $ 1.5 million. Bac then the estate tax threshhold was $ 600,000.

My aunt didn't pay the tax. She was dead.

I paid it. So did my mother and father. And my siblings, and our kids. So did the church, the animal rehabilitation center, the World Wildlife Fund, the unwanted dog adoption agency and about 15 other charities, almost all animal or conservation related.

None of us individuals or organizations are rich but we all got smaller shares because the government took a slice.

If my aunt died today, there would not have been a tax as the threshhold is now at least $ 1.5 million I think.

[TankLV]

28. You poor ting!

Greed doesn't fall far, does it!

Excuse me while I find time in my busy schedule to feel sorry for your millions of dollars of "loss".

Most people worry about funeral expenses, medical bills, and other items that are in danger of bankrupting them, and don't have ANY "estate" left when their parents croak.

You poor ting!

[Demeter]

19. Let It Go Down In FLAMES

When only one man is left in this country with any money, do we make him President, and let him pay all the bills?

[gademocrat7]

20. The Democrats

need to make sure this tax does not get repealed. Any defeat of a repug
vote would be good.

[liberaliraqvet26]

24. especially this one...

this cannot possibly have public support

[countingbluecars]

22. The rich get richer,

and the poor get poorer. This seems to be the standard for the *administration.

[Ian David]

25. We have to save The Paris Hilton Tax! n/t

[liberaliraqvet26]

26. Leave Paris alone, at least shes a Dem...

remember the rock the vote shirt she wore, it had a kerry button on it.