A key procedural vote provided a huge victory June 8 for those who oppose estate tax repeal.
The vote on a motion to proceed with consideration of estate tax repeal, which required 60 Senators to agree, failed 57-41.
Florida’s Bill Nelson was one of the renegade Democrats who voted for the motion to proceed. He is a longtime proponent of abolishing the tax.
The vote today affirms that the Senate will not pass full repeal of the estate tax. However, those seeking to make changes to the estate tax are expected to continue to work on proposals short of full repeal that could be brought up later this year. So the debate will continue …
See an earlier 13th juror previous post about the estate tax here.
Some background you should know: Eighteen families – including the owners of Wal-Mart – that stand to save $71.6 billion in taxes are financing lobbying efforts to repeal the estate tax. Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy said the families perpetrated a fraud on ordinary Americans by saying the levy constitutes an unfair “death tax.” Only about 0.25 percent of Americans who die this year will leave an estate large enough to be taxed, the groups said.
Read the Seattle Post-Intelligencer report here. (Thanks to What’s Wrong with Orlando Politics for the link.)
In Florida, fewer than 2% of the people who died in 2004 were subject to the estate tax. Check out the Citizens for Tax Justice analysis of IRS data, broken down by state, here.
Cross-posted from the 13th juror.
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