Study of Nearly 1,000 Family Business Owners

• Study Contents

C. Estate Taxes and Jobs

• Table 4 - Business Liquidation, Job Losses and Estate Taxes

While precise economic costs remain open to debate, the data consistently indicate that estate taxes cost jobs (see Table 4):

• Collectively, the 967 family businesses included in this study lost more than 700 jobs when estate taxes last came due.
• They employ 9,000 fewer people than they would if estate taxes were eliminated -- this represents 5.4% job growth that has been prevented by estate taxes.
• These business owners also expect that more than 20,000 jobs will be lost when estate taxes next come due.
• As in the case of planning costs, nearly seventy percent of responding firms (n = 670) did not report an estimate of expected future job losses. Many of these respondents are the same individuals who also did not report an estimate of their future estate tax liability. This raises the possibility that the estimate of 20,000 future job losses might greatly understate the degree of job losses which these 967 firms will experience when estate taxes come due.