Estate Tax Repeal. H.R. 1105, the Death Tax Repeal Act of 2015, would amend the Internal Revenue Code to repeal the estate tax.
The House passed H.R. 1105 on April 16, 2015 by a vote of 240 to 179 (Roll Call 161). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the estate tax discourages upward mobility in America’s middle class by making it prohibitively expensive to pass on a family business or farm to one’s descendants. Even though proponents of the estate tax claim that its repeal would only benefit the super-rich at the expense of everyone else, the wealthy are often not adversely affected by the estate tax and can usually avoid it via accounting strategies and funneling money into tax-free foundations. In fact, in 2001 over 120 of America’s wealthiest urged Congress not to repeal the estate tax.
As Representative Roger Williams (R-Texas) noted during debate on the bill, “The death tax is a tax on savings that have already been taxed on before…. Many second-generation business owners do not have the means to hire teams of accountants and lawyers to navigate the costly obstacles to save the family farm and save the family business…. As a small-business owner of 44 years, I have seen friends and colleagues lose gains earned from a lifetime of hard work because of Washington’s greed and failed policies, like the death tax.”
