President Clinton has
said he would sign legislation that eliminates
the death tax by 2009, according to the New York
Times.
The plan would exempt nearly all
small business owners from the death tax
starting next year and allow business owners to
leave $2 million -- $4 million for a couple --
to their heirs without paying estate
taxes.
The death tax legislation passed
the House last month with some Democrats'
support and is being debated in the Senate this
week.
However, NFIB members insist the
inheritance tax must be eliminated altogether.
Clinton's proposal is not enough, they say, and
the current plan before the Senate is too
complicated.
My concern is not over the
Bill Gateses of the world, said Jim Hirni, an
NFIB member. But we have to eliminate this tax,
because it is too complicated to comply with the
rules. Instead of further complicating the
system, the best way is to eliminate the tax,
period.
A vote in the Senate could come
as early as tonight.
The whole reason I
took up this cause is I do not want to see
another small family business get into the
situation we are in, said Mark Sincavage, a land
developer in the Pocono Mountains of
Pennsylvania whose family expects to sell some
of their land to pay a $600,000 estate tax
bill.
NFIB said that Sincavage's
situation as an especially good example of
problems the estate tax causes its members who
are asset rich but short on
cash.
Similarly, John H. Kearney, a Ford
and Lincoln dealer in Ravena, N.Y., said he got
slammed pretty hard when his father died last
year. Kearney had to use savings intended for
his children's education to pay the estate tax
bill.
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