Washington May
23, 2000 -- Two members of NFIB, the
nation's largest small-business organization,
today joined together with a bipartisan
contingent of lawmakers and dozens of other
family-business owners for a Capitol Hill news
conference and lobbying blitz to urge Congress
to repeal the punitive death tax.
"Because of
the death tax, my family is forced to choose the
lesser of two evils: either pay $36,000 a year
in life-insurance premiums, or eventually face
selling our business," said Brad Eiffert of
Boone County Lumber in Columbia, Mo. "Selling
the business would remove 40 jobs from our
community and kill a valuable source of income
tax, sales tax and property tax. It doesn't make
any sense, and I hope something can be done
before it's too late for many small
businesses."
Eiffert was in Washington to
join other family-business owners for "Kill the
Death Tax Day," which includes today's news
conference and lobbying visits with key members
of Congress. The House Ways and Means Committee
is scheduled to consider legislation on Thursday
that would repeal the tax, and a vote on the
House floor is possible within the next few
weeks. NFIB members participating in the press
conference and lobbying visits are:
Brad
Eiffert, head of Boone County Lumber Co., a
Columbia, Mo., family-owned business started in
1965 and now employing 40,
John Kearney,
owner of Bud Kearney, Inc., an independent auto
dealership in Raven a, N.Y., founded by his
father in 1950 and now employing 19.
NFIB has
led the fight to repeal the federal death tax,
which it has dubbed "the most unfair tax of all,
literally taxing businesses right out of
families." NFIB research shows that more than 70
percent of family businesses do not survive the
second generation, and more than 87 percent
never make it to the third generation. One in
three small-business families today have to sell
their businesses outright or liquidate business
assets just to pay death taxes.
"These folks
both traveled hundreds of miles to Washington
because the American Dream is under attack from
the death tax," said NFIB Senior Vice President
Dan Danner. "Members of Congress from both sides
of the aisle need to come together, kill this
death tax and help save the family business and
family farm before it's too late."
Contact:
Mary
Mead Crawford orEd Frank
202.554.9000
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