Budget Brings Back Death Tax

Part of the Bush tax cuts was a provision that would wind down the estate tax from its existing 55% to 45% in 2009 and then to zero in 2010. For the Obama administration, a year without an estate tax is a terrible thing to waste. If you actually read the budget, which few do, particularly congressmen, you find this footnote on Page 127: "(T)he estate tax is maintained at its 2009 parameters." The first Bush tax cut has been, in effect, repealed — part of the age of "fairness" we now all inhabit. In an economy that is starved for capital, the death tax is dangerous. The Joint Economic Committee has calculated that the death tax has reduced the stock of capital by $847 billion, money that can't be used to expand or start businesses or hire more people. A new study by the American Family Business Foundation, written by economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, finds that the death tax is responsible for lowering overall employment by 1.5 million jobs. It takes capital out of the productive hands of entrepreneurs' descendants and heirs and into the unproductive hands of government...IBD