FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 7, 2000

CONTACT: Ray Krauze (202) 225-7931

Rep. Peter Deutsch (FL-20) Announces His Support for Sustaining the Presidential Veto on of H.R. 8, the Estate Tax Repeal ; Introduces his own proposal on Estate Tax Adjustments

    Congressman Peter Deutsch (D-FL, 20) voted today to uphold President Clinton's veto of the Republican estate tax repeal. During floor debate on this legislation, Deutsch reiterated his support for estate tax reform and introduced compromise legislation on this national priority.

"This legislation vetoed by the President illustrates two distinct, competing interests -- those of hard working Americans and the societal damaged based on concentration of wealth. Estate Tax reform is desperately needed," Deutsch added. "In today's world, $675,000 is an unfair threshold for many hard-working families, while complete repeal of the tax is not in the best interest of society as a whole."

In an effort to continue the push toward estate tax reform, Congressman Deutsch introduced compromise legislation today which would increase the threshold required for exemption from its current state of $675,000 to $5,000,000, while at the same time indexing the exemption for inflation.

"$5 million is not a magic number, but it's an honest approach to estate tax relief. We need to pass compromise legislation that the President can sign, and stop playing games with the American people."