Taxation & Estate Planning

New Estate Tax Fix Introduced

By michael

Last night, as part of the jobs bill, Senators Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) introduced legislation creating a permanent fix for the estate tax.

According to this story at TheHill.com:

Their proposal would require Democratic leaders to amend the small-business jobs bill with a provision that sets the estate tax at 35 percent with a $5 million exemption. These amounts will be phased in over a 10-year period and also be indexed for inflation. In addition, inherited assets would be taxed at their worth upon transfer, not when the deceased purchased them.

Fantastic!  I’ve said before that I like $5 million as the exemption and bringing the stepped up basis back is just a no-brainer.

Quoting Senator Kyl:

“If the Small Business Lending bill is intended to help small business create jobs, wouldn’t it make sense to provide small-business owners with the certainty that their tax rates aren’t going to skyrocket at the beginning of next year?”

I’m not often in agreement with Republican sound-bytes, but I am wholeheartedly behind this one.

Tweet This Post

Full post as published by The Ohio Trust & Estate Blog on July 14, 2010 (boomark / email).