The American system and publically funded infrastructure helps make this wealth possible. Before it is passed on to the inheritors, America should get her share.

Another strike against the passing of family farms on to the newer generation. Yep, I grew up on a farm.

A decades-long campaign by right-wing activists (brilliantly documented by Yale professors Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro in their book "Death by a Thousand Cuts") has convinced many Americans that the estate tax poses a threat to countless hardworking families. That was always nonsense, and under the estate tax revisions that almost all Democrats support -- raising the threshold for eligibility to $3.5 million for an individual and $7 million for a couple -- it becomes more nonsensical still. Under the $3.5 million exemption, the number of family-owned small businesses required to pay any taxes in the year 2000 would have been just 94, according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office. The number of family farms that would have had to sell any assets to pay that tax would have been 13.

The number of family farms that would have had to sell any assets to pay that tax would have been 13.

Relying on a 2001 analysis, JEC found that "approximately 2.6 million acres of forest land must be harvested each year to pay for the estate tax. Another 1.3 million acres must be sold to raise funds to pay estate taxes, of which close to one-third (29 percent) is either developed or converted to other uses." Add these extra 377,000 acres to the figure above, and the death tax devours some 2.98 million acres each year.

"Death tax supporters think they're visiting vengeance on rich old people who've gone to their graves, but they're really wreaking havoc on other living things, like forests, meadows, lakes, and all the creatures they support," says National Taxpayers Union communications director Pete Sepp. "Committed liberals should commit the death tax to their compost heap of history." A big problem here is that the death tax strikes many who are land-rich and cash-poor. In a May 2003 study, Pamela Villarreal of the National Center for Policy Analysis found that "The average tree farm is valued at about $2 million, while the average annual household income of a tree farmer is less than $50,000." Such cash flow cannot cover huge death-tax liabilities. So, up go the "For Sale" signs. Among the 33 percent of forest owners who paid the death tax, "40 percent sold timber or land in order to make the payment ... About 57 percent of those who sold land had no other assets available to pay the estate tax."

Since Bush took office in January 2001, government jobs have dropped by 51,000 -- nearly 2 percent.

Since Bush took office in January 2001, government jobs have dropped by 51,000 -- nearly 2 percent.

Worth noting is that family-owned farms and closely held businesses already receive special treatment under current law. Heirs who agree to keep the farm or business assets within the family for 10 years after death can reduce the taxable amount of the estate by 40 percent to 70 percent. And if the farm or business is at least 35 percent of the gross value of the estate, payments can be spread out over 14 years.

According to a report last year from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, an incredibly tiny number of family farms are actually impacted by the estate tax. If the current $2 million threshold existed in 2000, as many reform proposals would have allowed, only 123 farms per year in the entire country would have owed estate taxes. The report further estimated that the number of family farms impacted would have dropped to a mere 65 farms nationwide with an exemption of $3.5 million ($7 million per couple), the level the exemption will be in 2009. (Yes, the first $3.5 million of an estate - double it if married - will be tax free in 2009.) This is yet another piece of evidence that the rhetoric concerning the impact of the estate tax on family farms is just a myth

Since Bush took office in January 2001, government jobs have dropped by 51,000 -- nearly 2 percent.

The American Prospect was founded in 1990 as an authoritative magazine of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective...

Surely that money should go to social programs for kids who didn't choose their parents as wisely.

cpinva, conservative hogwash propaganda it may well be, but, if so, then the quote from the American Prospect preceding my comment is liberal hogwash propaganda and needed some balance.

Why wait till they're dead, Sailor? Why not just take the wealth from those parents who's children did choose wisely and give it to those who didn't until everyone's got the same amount?

should we share the same burder as those out of the stratosphere?

the wealthy got rid of the waste in their life, if we all did, this argument would be beyond moot.

The National Review is notorious for misleading stats. The American Prospect, though liberal, is notorious for accurate and honest stats.

I challenge you to show the stats at the American Prospect are misleading.

Under the $3.5 million exemption, the number of family-owned small businesses required to pay any taxes in the year 2000 would have been just 94, according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office.

that's a pretty stupid twisting of my words, but SOP for wrongwingers.

After he's dead he can't spend it and his kids didn't earn it.

Surely that money should go to social programs for kids who didn't choose their parents as wisely.

your words indicate that you believe the state should have the right to, on the death of a citizen, against the express wishes of that citizen, appropriate his bought-and-paid-for, tax-paid, privately-owned personal property and assets, and redistribute them to people who are NOT those who their rightful owner wanted them distributed to. That is as stupid a thing as I've ever seen written here on TL.

Why wait till they're dead, Sailor? Why not just take the wealth from those parents

your words indicate that you believe the state should have the right to, on the death of a citizen, against the express wishes of that citizen, appropriate his bought-and-paid-for, tax-paid, privately-owned personal property and assets, and redistribute them to people who are NOT those who their rightful owner wanted them distributed to.

The free country which made that fortune possible DESERVES a fair share of inherited wealth

your words indicate that you believe the state should have the right to, on the death of a citizen, and against the express wishes of that citizen, appropriate his bought-and-paid-for, tax-paid, privately-owned personal property and assets, and redistribute them to people who are NOT those who their rightful owner wanted them distributed to.

Oh yeah, the weasel-words: 94 "family-owned small businesses." What the hell is that? What is the definition of that? They defined it as only those privately-held business who's owner died in 2000 AND the estate filed a QFOBI - Qualified Family Owned Business Interest deduction. So, of that tiny sample, apparently 94 had assets over 3.5 mill.

In 2000, estates that claimed the QFOBI deduction were larger than a typical estate: their average value was $3.1 million (compared with $2.0 million for all estates filing returns), and their median value was $1.3 million (com- pared with $1.1 million for all estates).

The Tax Policy Center uses a definition for small businesses and farms that includes all businesses and farms with assets worth up to $5 million. Under this definition, the Tax Policy Center estimates that under current law in 2011 -- that is, with a $1 million exemption and a 55 percent top rate -- there would be 760 taxable estates that year in which a small farm or business comprises a majority of the estate. With a $2 million exemption, there would be only 210 estates nationally where a small farm or business represented more than half of the value of the estate. With a $3.5 million exemption, only 50 taxable estates in the country in 2011 would have small business or farm assets that represent a majority of the estate.

Family owned farms and small businesses already receive "especially generous treatment" under the estate tax.16 Federal law allows those who inherit farms and small businesses to take advantage of several special provisions, including higher exemptions and the ability to pay estate taxes over several years. Indeed, the American Farm Bureau Federation, an advocate of estate tax repeal, acknowledged to the New York Times that it could not cite a single example of a farm having to be sold to pay estate taxes,17 and that was under the 2001 estate tax exemption level of $1 million.

The Tax Policy Center uses a definition for small businesses and farms that includes all businesses and farms with assets worth up to $5 million. Under this definition...

only a selected sub-group of the privately-held businesses, and not the entirety, don't know that the report is not representative of the whole.

Just because your privately-held business assets won't qualify you for the tax, doesn't mean that those assets along with the rest of your personal assets won't land you in the liquidating assets to pay the estate tax category.

The large proportion of wealth held as liquid assets relative to the effective tax rate suggests that many estates may have been able to pay their estate taxes without liquidating business assets or personal residences (which constituted 22 percent and 7 percent, respectively, of the wealth of all estates filing returns).

I cannot believe the stereotypes here. Paris Hilton as the example of all those who inherit. rich people waste. If you are well off, you have never been poor.

In year 2000, with only a $1 million dollar exemption, one third of those 94 family businesses would have to liquidate any fixed business assets to pay the tax, or 31 families.

The National Review is notorious for misleading stats. The American Prospect, though liberal, is notorious for accurate and honest stats.