18 rich families pay for campaign to kill estate taxes

Algorem

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Wed Apr-26-06 09:17 AM
Original message

18 rich families pay for campaign to kill estate taxes

Edited on Wed Apr-26-06 12:45 PM by newyawker99

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1146040565219270.xml&coll=2

Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Sabrina Eaton
Plain Dealer Bureau

Washington -- Eighteen of America's wealthiest families, including the Timkens of Canton, are bankrolling efforts to permanently repeal estate taxes that would save their families a total of $71.6 billion, according to a report released Tuesday by public interest groups.

Groups funded by the super-rich have engaged in a deceptive campaign to convince the public that estate taxes cause widespread problems for small businesses and family farms when they actually affect about one in 370 estates, said the report released by Public Citizen and Boston-based United for a Fair Economy.

This year, all assets under $2 million for individuals and under $4 million for couples are exempt from estate taxes. Current tax law will boost those exemptions to $3.5 million and $7 million in 2009, eliminate the estate tax in 2010, and reimpose it in 2011 with a $1 million exemption.

The House voted to permanently repeal the estate tax last year, but the measure stalled in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to override filibusters. Majority Leader Bill Frist says he will bring the bill up in May...

http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0425-04.htm

Public Citizen, UFE Expose Stealth Campaign of Super-Wealthy to Repeal Federal Estate Tax
Report Identifies 18 Families Behind Campaign

WASHINGTON - APRIL 25 - The multimillion- dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax.

It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.

The report, available at http://www.citizen.org , profiles the families and their businesses, which include the families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell's soup, and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms. Collectively, the list includes the first- and third- largest privately held companies in the United States, the richest family in Alabama and the world's largest retailer.

These families have sought to keep their activities anonymous by using associations to represent them and by forming a massive coalition of business and trade associations dedicated to pushing for estate tax repeal. The report details the groups they have hidden behind -- the trade associations they have used, the lobbyists they have hired, and the anti-estate tax political action committees, 527s and organizations to which they have donated heavily.

In a massive public relations campaign, the families have also misled the country by giving the mistaken impression that the estate tax affects most Americans. In particular, they have used small businesses and family farms as poster children for repeal, saying that the estate tax destroys both of these groups. But just more than one-fourth of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006. And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable when asked by The New York Times to cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability.

"This report exposes one of the biggest con jobs in recent history," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. "This long-running, secretive campaign funded by some of the country's wealthiest families has relied on deception to bamboozle the public not only about who must pay the estate tax, but about how repealing it will affect the country."

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=ISO-8859-1&ncl=http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0425-04.htm

Diebold's Political Machine

By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

March 5, 2004

...One of the longest-serving Diebold directors is W.R. "Tim" Timken. Like O'Dell, Timken is a Republican loyalist and a major contributor to GOP candidates. Since 1991 the Timken Company and members of the Timken family have contributed more than a million dollars to the Republican Party and to GOP presidential candidates such as George W. Bush. Between 2000 and 2002 alone, Timken's Canton-based bearing and steel company gave more than $350,000 to Republican causes, while Timken himself gave more than $120,000. This year, he is one of George W. Bush's campaign Pioneers, and has already pulled in more than $350,000 for the president's reelection bid...

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001611.htm

Blogged by Brad on 7/18/2005 @ 4:12pm PT...

Ushering in the Fall of the House of Bush
So Much Unprecedented Corruption, So Little Accountability...

Write your senators, Boyz & giRlz, and urge them to rake this slimeball over the coals. Courtesy of Wayne Madsen:

July 19, 2005 -- President Bush has nominated William Robert Timken, Jr. to be the next U.S. ambassador to Germany. Timken, the head of Canton, Ohio-based Timken Co. and one of the Bush campaign's deep pocketed "Pioneer" half million dollar contributors, also served on the board of directors of Ohio-based Diebold, Inc., the company accused of helping to fix the 2004 presidential elections through the use of faulty and paperless computerized voting machines. Timken conveniently resigned from the board of Diebold on July 5, 2005, just a few weeks prior to Bush nominating him as ambassador to Germany. Note to Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: This will be the first time you will be able to get someone so involved with Diebold and the 2004 election under oath during his confirmation hearings. This is something John Conyers would've dearly loved to do over on the House Judiciary Committee -- but official hearings were blocked by the GOP. Senators Biden, Dodd, Feingold, etc.: don't blow this golden opportunity to grill Timken on what he knows about Diebold chairman Walden O'Dell, his comment that he would "do whatever he could" to put Ohio in Bush's column, and pre-programmed Diebold "election engineering." The GOP will argue it has nothing to do with Timken's qualifications to be an ambassador -- but being involved in a crooked election says everything about Timken's integrity...

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