U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s news release today sounds like a rollout of her 2010 campaign theme.
Of course, you could also call someone who votes most of the time against the leadership of the party who nominated her a Republican.
You could also call her a liar.
There’s no other way to characterize her remarks about the need for estate tax relief for small businesses and farmers. To repeat just some of the facts: No spouse, however rich, must pay a dime of estate tax on inheritance received from his or her spouse. Beginning Jan. 1 on other inheritances, the first $3.5 million is untaxed, which effectively means a couple can effectively leave $7 million to family without taxes due.
The tax code includes numerous benefits for small businesses and farmers in installment payments of taxes at lower interest rates. In years of searching, nobody has yet found a farm sold on account of estate taxes. The $3.5 million exclusion can be ratcheted up to higher levels by a raft of estate planning techniques. The repeal of the estate tax would benefit only the very wealthiest people, but that tiny number of Americans control immense wealth and legislators.
A Congressional Budget Office study found a grand total of 65 farm estates nationwide would have owed estate taxes in a 2000 test year under the expanded exemption set to take effect in 2009. In 2004, only 440 estates consisted primarily of farm and family business assets subject to taxes.
Yes, family-owned businesses face some estate tax burdens. Doesn’t seem to have hurt the Waltons much. Warren Buffet supports the estate tax. But, boy, would they hit a jackpot if it went away. Which probably explains the Waltons’ affection for Lincoln’s representation. If she’d only tell the truth about the number of people her tax “relief” would affect. A few hundred in Arkansas each year, at most.