|
|
||
Date published: 12/13/2002
FALLS CHURCH--For those who thought that the onerous federal estate tax would soon be repealed, get ready for this cruel and costly hoax: In 20 states, including Virginia, the death tax will actually go up, not down, next year. In fact, under the new tax bill signed into law by President Bush, the 50 percent death tax rises to 56 percent in 2003, 60 percent in 2004 and 55 percent in 2005. Gee, that's some relief! What's going on here? It turns out that to "pay for" the tax cut, Senate Democrats added two devilishly devised amendments to the tax bill to ensure that few Americans will actually face a lower estate tax. The first of these provisions is by now common knowledge to most Americans. In 2010, the hated graveyard tax is fully repealed. In 2011, the tax comes back to life and is reinstated at a confiscatory rate. So real death-tax repeal is available only for those who, through the cleverest of estate-tax planning, have scheduled to meet their maker in 2010, and not a day before or after. Some people are calling this the "Throw Mamma From the Train" death-tax bill. But for those who die in 2003, '04, or '05, the scam is especially expensive. In Virginia and 19 other states--representing roughly half the U.S. population--the death-tax rate will go up, not down, under the new federal law. This is because Senate Democrats insisted on phasing out something called the state death-tax credit to "pay for" the tax cut. This tax credit encouraged states to impose a 16 percent estate tax of their own, because every dollar raised from the tax would come out of the coffers of the federal government, not the dead man's estate. This meant that states could impose a 16 percent estate tax at no cost to their citizens. So 20 states did just that. But through a quirk in the new law, the tax credit is eliminated at a faster pace than the tax rate is cut.
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
|
|
|||||||||||||
