Phil Kerpen

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/Video-Embeds/2010/April/Phil-Kerpen-on-the-Tax-Hikes-Tea-Party/

The death tax is fundamentally a moral issue. Americans do not believe that death should be a taxable event.

Updated December 02, 2009

By Phil Kerpen - FOXNews.com

While the Senate is busy debating a Washington takeover of health care this week, the House will consider outrageous legislation that is getting much less attention: a bill to keep the death tax and make it permanent. The bill, H.R. 4154, would bring the death tax back to life less than a month before its scheduled repeal at the end of this calendar year.

Read the rest at Fox Forum.

Listen to a 2-minute KerpenCast on this topic here.

Letter to the Editor

The estate tax law scheduled to take effect in 2011 would not create a $2 million per couple exemption but would return to a $1 million per individual exemption, requiring complex estate planning to spread the exemption between spouses. Allowing portability between spouses is a key reform included in the Lincoln-Kyl proposal and supported by President Obama.

But not every family business is owned by a married couple, and it would be clearer to speak of the exemption as the amount allowed for each individual.

by Phil Kerpen
Posted Aug 01, 2006
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16286

At about quarter to 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, the House of Representatives passed the Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act. The bill represents the latest compromise (sell-out really) in a fight that, until a couple of months ago, was supposed to be about actually repealing the federal death tax completely and permanently. Now we’ve got a House bill that keeps the tax permanently on the books, with the estate-planning headache of a staggered phase-in, and hikes the federal mandated wage by more than 40%, too. How did things go so wrong?

I attached the summary of the tax bill that the House will vote on tonight. It hikes the minimum wage by over 40 percent, which is a stunning concession. You would think that by including a provision like that to force Dems and liberal Republicans to vote yes, and combining the popular extenders package that was taken out of tax reconciliation last year, we would be able to finally get repeal of the estate tax. Well, not quite. The new version of estate tax reform isn't as bad as the last Thomas bill, but it's not great either. Under the Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act of 2006, the estate tax rate would be set at the cpaital gains tax rate between the exemptin amount and $25 million, then taxed at a higher statutory rate above that. The exemption amounts and top rates would go like this:

Year      Exemption Amount      Top Rate
2007      $2 million            45%
2008      $2 million            45%
2009      $3.5 million          45%
2010      $3.75 million         40%
2011      $4 million            38%
2012      $4.25 million         36%
2013      $4.5 million          34%
2014      $4.75 million         32%
2015      $5 million            30%

Now, as I've argued, the estate tax is a moral issue, and I don't think we should compromise on it. But if we must compromise, I think creating a whole new slate of annual changes is a mistake. We should be simplifying things. Moreover, if we must give up the minimum wage, shouldn't we get more to show for it than this? And let's say this passes the Senate and becomes law--the death tax will remain permanently on the books, and be blunted as a political issue. I would have to urge a no vote on this one.

A Moral Issue

BY PHILIP G. KERPEN
June 29, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/35312

Last week, in an inexplicable reversal, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to keep the federal death tax on the books. In legislation sponsored by House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, HR 5638, the House for the first time in a decade deviated from its support for total repeal, and thus gave up the moral high ground that death should not be a taxable event.

Read the whole column at NYSun.com