DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, NEW YORK TIMES: The number of farms on which estate tax is owed when the owners die has fallen by 82% since 2000, to just 300 farms, as Congress has more than doubled the threshold at which the tax applies, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report released last week. All but 27 farmers left enough liquid assets to pay taxes owed, the budget office found. . .
These findings come as the Senate is poised to vote this month on repealing the estate tax. Advocates of repeal have begun showing commercials criticizing senators who oppose repeal, such as Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-WA. Many of the criticisms focus on a supposed threat to family farms.
The estate tax raised an estimated $23.4 billion last year. Repeal would shift part of the burden of taxes off the fortunes left by the richest one percent of Americans, some of whose fortunes were never taxed, onto the general population. The lost revenue could be made up in three ways: higher income taxes, reduced government services or more borrowing, which would pass the burden of current government spending to future generations.
President Bush, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association have asserted that the estate tax is destroying family farms. None, however, has cited a case of a farm lost to estate taxes, although in June 2001 Bush said he had talked to such farmers.
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