Debate on death and taxes heats up as billionaires fall focus 08/03/2010

Debate on death and taxes heats up as billionaires fall

focus 08/03/2010 WASHINGTON — The question of death and taxes has risen to the fore in Washington as the demise of prominent billionaires has underscored a fluke which allows big estates to escape taxes, but only for this year. Highlighting the conundrum has been the death of wealthy Americans including oil tycoon Dan Duncan and New York Yankees baseball owner George Steinbrenner, who can pass on their fortunes to heirs with no taxes. Duncan’s fortune was estimated at $9 billion and Steinbrenner’s at $1.1 by Forbes magazine. If they had died in 2009 or 2011, their estates would have paid huge amounts of taxes to the US Treasury. The heirs avoided the tax man because a law enacted in 2001 under then President George W. Bush phased out the estate tax entirely in 2010. But the law expires in 2011, putting the tax back into effect at 2001 levels, with rates up to 55 percent. Lawmakers and others claim it is folly for the government to allow such dramatic changes in the inheritance tax depending on the year of death, and are pressing for quick reform. Some activists say the estate tax is progressive because it distributes wealth from the richest; but critics deride it as a “death tax” and claim it hurts farms and family businesses when an owner dies..... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100803com6.html

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