Estate Taxes

Why should conservatives oppose inheritance taxes? After all, those taxes are the best example of "pay as you go." HARRY SIMMONS Laguna Niguel

SACRAMENTO - Washington's avoidance of the so-called "fiscal cliff" is generally good news for California's finances. But the deal approved by President Obama on Wednesday will still take a bite out of the state budget. The legislation won't allow California and other states to keep a portion of revenue from the federal estate tax, a levy on wealth inheritance. California hasn't received any revenue from the tax since 2004, and analysts doubted that Congress would reverse course and restore the money.

The House voted Wednesday to eliminate federal estate taxes in 2010 and beyond, a repeal that Republicans hailed but many Democrats said would reward the richest families while deepening federal deficits. President Bush's 10-year, $1.35-trillion tax cut in 2001 included a slow phaseout of the estate tax by 2010, but the tax would be reinstated in 2011 when the entire 2001 tax law expired.

Dear Liz: My husband and I have given our daughters gifts over the years, but we have never exceeded the $26,000 gift tax limit for a married couple. Do we need to file IRS Form 709 to split the gifts? If so, how to do we file for past years? Answer: The gift tax system exists to help prevent wealthy people from transferring large amounts to their heirs during the donors' lifetimes in an attempt to avoid estate taxes. Each person, however, is allowed to give a certain amount each year to any number of recipients.

A line in the obituaries of Malcolm Forbes, the owner of Forbes Magazine who died last weekend, may have started many Americans thinking about their own family finances. Forbes' sons will inherit the family's business magazine, the articles said, but also a potential tax liability of 55% of the firm's value. To be sure, not many Americans compared their nest egg to Forbes' estate--a business that could be worth as much as $1 billion.

Death and taxes are inevitable, but that doesn't mean entrepreneurs have to like either of them. A new study by the Texas-based Institute for Policy Innovation concludes that estate taxes soak successful family-owned businesses while generating relatively little revenue for the Treasury.

The federal estate tax, which in theory is supposed to prevent the buildup of inherited wealth and give society equality of opportunity, is not really accomplishing that purpose now, by all accounts. So it should be repealed--and probably will be in the next few years. Estate tax repeal will be part of any tax relief package put forward by Congress this year, although no tax bill is likely to go far this session.

President Clinton's veto of a bill repealing the estate tax faces an override vote in the House today, but the cause is lost. In the Senate, repeal passed by only 59 votes, well short of the 67 needed to nullify a veto, and there's no indication that repeal has gained any new supporters. That will leave in place a law that dates from Woodrow Wilson's presidency nearly 85 years ago and whose antecedents stretch back into the late 18th century.

Q: A recent column touched on the strategy of buying an insurance policy to cover estate taxes. Can you explain more about this and how it works? --S.P . L. A: The concept is actually quite simple, but the execution must be flawless to achieve the desired end, advises Gregg Ritchie, a partner with the accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick in Los Angeles.

Ira Cohen still doesn't think of himself as a millionaire, but, as he discovered a few months ago, it doesn't take that much these days for your assets to add up--big time. The two-story tract house he owns in Glendora was worth several hundred thousand dollars. Thanks partly to the stock-market boom, there was a surprising several hundred thousand more in his 401(k) accounts. And he bought a vacation lot in Tucson that has appreciated in value. His total net worth: $1 million-plus.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown has bet a portion of California's financial health on the expectation that a hyperpartisan Congress will change course on a hotly debated tax policy this year. The budget Brown signed last week assumes that over the next four years the state will reap almost $2.3 billion from the federal estate tax, a levy on wealth inheritance. California hasn't collected any revenue from the tax since 2004, and if Congress sticks with current policy it won't in the coming years, either.

The current debate about rich and poor - the 1% vs. the 99% - is a bit misleading, because the evidence usually is data about income, not wealth. Looking at wealth would make the comparison even starker. There are some nice deals to be had in the income tax code these days, but most wealth accumulates and passes from generation to generation with no tax at all. Warren Buffett (who has selflessly taken on the role of all-purpose tape measure in these matters) is worth $45 billion or so. Do you think that all of that $45 billion, or even most of it, has appeared on any Form 1040 on its way to the cookie jar?

Sanity in the Senate Re "Senate strikes down 'don't ask,' " Dec. 19 Finally! Now that "don't ask, don't tell" has been repealed in a Senate vote, can we move on to issues that have a greater impact on the country and all of its citizens? I am completely sympathetic with the injustice of this policy. But the airtime, energy and attention given to this issue by myriad progressive and right-wing groups and the media is absurd. To prohibit homosexuals from being and expressing who they are, whether in the military or not, is so patently wrong, it should not have taken one moment of back-and-forth yammering to get it right.

Of the several objectionable provisions included in the tax compromise that congressional Republicans extorted from the Obama administration, none is more noxious than the one that all but guts the estate tax. Even the needless and unfair continuation of tax reductions for families making more than a quarter of a million dollars a year merely extends a benefit already enjoyed by affluent households. Estate tax cuts, by contrast, create a whole new windfall for those who already enjoy privileges and security undreamed of by the vast majority of Americans.

The House on Thursday found itself temporarily stymied on how to proceed on the tax-cut extension package when some Democrats protested the terms of debate on the package negotiated by President Obama and Republicans. The House on Thursday found itself temporarily stymied on how to proceed on the tax-cut extension package when some Democrats protested the terms of debate on the package negotiated by President Obama and Republicans. Originally, Democratic leaders had hoped to have a vote on the measure Thursday afternoon, but they were forced to pull back a rule needed to bring the measure to the floor when liberals objected to terms of debating such issues as the estate tax. Leaders were hopeful they could resolve the dispute in time to vote later Thursday, but a final vote could spill into Friday.

The Senate has passed legislation that would temporarily extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts and renew unemployment benefits for 7 million Americans, moving the compromise package on to the House of Representatives. Despite qualms from members of both parties in the House, final congressional action seems possible by week's end. The exact timing will depend on whether Democrats are successful in efforts to amend the package. The final vote in the Senate was 81-19. In addition to the tax rate and unemployment insurance extensions, the bill would trim the payroll tax by 2 percentage points for a year and reinstate the estate tax, but at a lower rate than was in force before it lapsed at the end of 2009.

Who's in charge? Re "Obama enlists help in tax-cut battle," Dec. 11 Not too long ago, he was touted as an intellectual eminence, the measured, cosmopolitan orator, the man of audacity who would change the way business was done in Washington. Barack Obama was the messianic vanquisher of the Clinton machine. Now, President Obama has had to enlist Bill Clinton to stave off a massive revolt from the "backbenchers" in Congress. And Clinton obliged. He moved to the White House podium and held court there with the natural and commanding ease of a prince returning to his palace.

The tax-cut deal struck by President Obama and Republican leaders has many congressional Democrats crying foul, complaining that Obama conceded too much in return for a few hundred billion dollars worth of long-sought economic stimulus. They don't like continuing the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and they howl that the proposed tax rate on multimillion-dollar estates is too low. The first of those provisions is bad policy, but the second is worse: an unnecessary handout to a few thousand wealthy families that addresses neither the country's sluggish economy nor Washington's long-term debt problem.