Professor Elam

Tues Dec 7 2010

This may be the end, of the estate tax that is. This is a particularly onerous tax. The 'idea' was to break up estates of the wealthy, but of course it never accomplished that. The wealthy move that to various trusts. Inflation has meant that many individuals are now worth a million dollars. Believe me assembling the information and paying this tax is onerous. I will be glad to see it gone. What an intrusion. After paying income taxes all one's life to accumulate property, then the govt wants a substantial chunk of the assets. .If those assets are in a family farm, here does the money come from?  Unless one has lots of life insurance, which by the way is also included in the tax, it a deal breaker for the family business which is often tied up in one asset.