Bernie Sanders Bill Restores Estate Tax on Billionaires

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/06/24-0

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 24, 2010
10:46 AM


CONTACT: US Senator Bernie Sanders
Michael Briggs or Will Wiquist [phone]
Sanders Bill Restores Estate Tax on Billionaires


WASHINGTON - June 24 - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today introduced legislation to restore the estate tax on the wealthiest Americans. The proposal would bring in at least $264 billion over a decade to help lower the national debt.

"This legislation would ensure that the wealthiest Americans in our country, millionaires and billionaires, pay their fair share while exempting 99.7 percent of Americans from paying any estate tax whatsoever," Sanders said.

The estate tax was abolished this year as a result of tax law changes signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2001. For the first time since 1916, heirs to multi-million and billion dollar fortunes may receive their entire inheritance free of any federal taxes, a giveaway that will cost the U.S. treasury at least $14.8 billion in lost revenue this year alone.

"At a time when we have a record-breaking $13 trillion national debt and a growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, people who inherit multi-million and billion dollar estates must not be allowed to avoid paying their fair share in estate taxes," Sanders said.

Sanders has made deficit reduction a priority, proposing legislation in the last month alone to repeal more than $35 billion in oil company tax breaks and commissioning Government Accountability Office studies spotlighting more than $20 billion in Pentagon waste on unneeded spare parts.

"I get a little bit tired of being lectured by Republicans for the deficit we are in," Sanders said, noting that Bush-era Republicans funded but failed to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; tax breaks for the wealthy; a prescription drug bill written by the pharmaceutical industry; and a $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

Sanders estate tax legislation is cosponsored by Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH). The bill would:

• Exempt the first $3.5 million of an estate from federal taxation ($7 million for couples), the same exemption that existed in 2009. That would leave 99.75 percent of all estates exempt from the federal estate tax next year.

• Create a progressive rate so the super wealthy pay more. The tax rate estates valued between $3.5 million and $10 million would be 45 percent, the same as the 2009 level. The rate on estates worth more than $10 million and below $50 million would be 50 percent, and the rate on estates worth more than $50 million would be 55 percent.

• Include a billionaire's surtax of 10 percent. According to Forbes Magazine, there are only 403 billionaires in the United States with a collective net worth of $1.3 trillion. Clearly, the heirs to these multi-billion fortunes should be paying a higher estate tax rate than others.

• Close estate and gift tax loopholes as President Obama proposed in his budget for next year. The White House estimated that closing the loopholes would generate at least $23.7 billion in revenue over 10 years.

• Protect family farmers by allowing them to lower the value of their farmland by up to $3 million for estate tax purposes. The bill also would increase the maximum exclusion for conservation easements to $2 million. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center has estimated that only 80 small businesses and farm estates throughout the country paid an estate tax in 2009, affecting only three out of every 100,000 people who passed away.
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[Deep13]

1. DO IT!! DO IT!! DO IT!! nt

[WeDidIt]

2. And not one Republican will vote for it.

I'd hazard Bayh, Ben Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Pryor, Lieberman, and Baucus are all Democrats who would probably not vote for it.

At least Bernie continues the job of exposing the Senaotrs who have been bought and paid for.

[Old and In the Way]

7. And all are deficit peacocks, too.

Put it to a vote...let the Party of No go on unanimous record against real deficit reduction. We may lose a few, but the contrast should be an issue for the fall election.

[oldlib]

3. Make em Pay!

Allowing multi-millionaires a tax break is criminal. The problems created by the Bush administration will live with us for a long time.

[pnwmom]

4. It does a lot more than that, restoring taxes on estates above $3.5 million

to 45%, with higher rates at higher levels.

All fine with me, although I'd prefer a bigger differential between those with estates of a few million and those with estates of a few billion.

[alstephenson]

5. Thank you, Senator Sanders.

[Old and In the Way]

6. Absolutely.

Intergenerational transfer of wealth is hardly productive for our society. That accumulation was based on individual effort AND the realized benefits of living/working within our economic system.

[gratuitous]

8. Even taxed at a marginal rate of 50%, I suspect

We will always have the graspers and the grabbers, people for whom enough is never enough, who must have more than they can ever spend, to be supplemented by more. When Dick Cheney cast the deciding vote for the first round of Bush tax cuts, the best analysis estimated his additional annual take at $175,000. For what? Dick Cheney never created one job with that money. He certainly didn't need it. And he wasn't doing anything (or supposed to be doing anything) as vice president to "earn" his deferred compensation from Halliburton. A Halliburton that was on the ropes, financially speaking, at the end of 2002, but which suddenly got fat with cash thanks to some lucrative government contracts connected to the invasion of Iraq.

Why are we impoverishing ourselves and letting our country go to rack and ruin? For 80 small businesses and farm estates? Are those 80 small businesses and farm estates going to pave our roads, fix up our bridges and modernize our school buildings?

[mdmc]

9. ..