Washington May
25, 2000 -- The small-business group NFIB
today applauded the U.S. House Ways and Means
Committee for approving legislation that would
completely repeal the dreaded death tax on small
businesses. HR 8, The Death Tax Elimination Act,
which was introduced by U.S. Reps. Jennifer Dunn
(8thDist. - Wash) and John Tanner (8th Dist. -
Tenn.) was approved, 24-11.
"Not too long
ago, a total death-tax repeal seemed out of the
question," said Dan Danner, NFIB senior vice
president. "Today, it's not so far-fetched,
because many members of Congress on both sides
of the aisle have heard first-hand from small
family businesses in their home districts about
how terribly unfair this tax is."
Earlier
this week, two members of NFIB each traveled
hundreds of miles to join 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. One
of the NFIB members, Brad Eiffert of Boone
County Lumber in Columbia, Mo., is forced to pay
$36,000every year in life-insurance premiums so
the business will be able to pay death taxes
when his father passes away someday.
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." All 600,000 NFIB members were asked
their views on the death tax in April1999, and a
massive 89 percent of responding small-business
owners voiced support for a total repeal. NFIB
research also shows that more than 70 percent of
family businesses do not survive the second
generation, and more than87 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.
A vote by the full
House is likely within a few weeks, possibly
when hundreds of NFIB members will be in
Washington for the 2000 Congressional Small
Business Summit June 7-10.
"The members of
the Ways and Means Committee who supported this
death-tax repeal, especially Chairman Bill
Archer and Representatives Dunn and Tanner,
really came through for the small, family-owned
business that epitomizes the American Dream,"
Danner said. "Now the best thing the House of
Representatives can do to show it's listening to
the concerns of small business is pass this bill
during the Small Business Summit in two
weeks."
Contact: Mary Mead
Crawford orEd Frank
202.554.9000
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