So explains the New York Times’ Carl Hulse: the estate tax on assets passed on to heirs will expire completely starting Jan. 1. Then, it will return at a 55 percent rate in 2011 for those with more than one million worth of assets. The estate or “death tax,” as its Republican detractors call it, is currently set at a 45 percent rate and it only kicks in if you have assets of at least $3.5 million.
Hulse ably answers questions of “huh?” and “What’s going on here?” The very short answer is that the one-year death of the death tax is a quirk of George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. The estate tax generates $25 billion a year in revenue for the federal government, which is trillions in debt. Annual revenues from the tax are more than what the Agricultural Dept. is spending on recession-based increases in food stamps. Yet I’ve not heard a single deficit hawk taking to the Senate floor protesting the tax’s one-year demise. Maybe it’s just impolite for politicians to discuss the ailing rich.