18 Super Wealthy Families Lobby for Estate Tax Repeal
Randall M. Jacobs
One of the reasons many people do estate planning is to legitimately avoid paying estate taxes. Recent changes in tax laws have made it easier than ever to avoid taxation of your assets at death. In 2006, only people with assets worth more than $2 million will be taxed, and a husband and wife can easily make $4 million exempt with some basic planning. This means that 99.7 percent of Americans are exempt from estate taxes.
The political lobbying on both sides of the “repeal” debate is quite interesting. An April, 2006 report by two advocacy groups, Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy, claims that the massive lobbying effort to repeal the estate tax has been secretly led by 18 super-wealthy families. The families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo Winery, Campbell Soup Company, and Mars Inc., among others, have funded a multi-million dollar campaign to repeal the federal estate tax. According to the report, titled "Spending Millions to Save Billions," the families stand to collectively gain $71.6 billion in personal wealth if the tax is repealed, but have kept their involvement anonymous by using associations to represent them.
The report also claims the 18 families have misled the public on the importance of the estate tax to most Americans, consistently claiming that farmers and small businesses are ruined by the tax. The report states that if the estate tax is repealed, it will cost the U.S. Treasury a trillion dollars in the first decade. This would likely mean that other taxes, such as income taxes or consumption taxes, would have to be raised to pay for the estate tax cut.
Yoder, Ainlay, Ulmer & Buckingham, LLP does not endorse either of the groups that published this report, but if you would like to read the full report, go to this website: http://www.citizen.org/documents/EstateTaxFinal.pdf
Even if estate taxes will not affect you, it is still important to engage in basic estate planning to name guardians for minor children, establish advance directives for health care, and make sure your assets are handled the way you want at your death.
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Randall Jacobs is a partner in the law firm
of Yoder, Ainlay, Ulmer & Buckingham, LLP in Goshen, Indiana, practicing
in the areas of trusts, estates, probate, corporate law, and nonprofit organizations.
While information in this article is
believed to be accurate, it is educational and general in nature, and
should not be construed as legal advice. Please consult your attorney
for specific legal advice. Yoder, Ainlay, Ulmer & Buckingham, LLP
© 2006
Yoder,
Ainlay, Ulmer & Buckingham, LLP