On September 13, 2010, MarketWatch published Estate-tax uncertainty will drag for a while, by Marshall Loeb:
A $1 million exemption ($2 million for married couples) would hit a lot of middle-income taxpayers, notably farmers and small-business owners. Your taxable estate could fairly quickly exceed $1 million if you own a nice home or simply live in a place where property values are high, have an IRA or 401(k) retirement account, and some other savings.
Hoping for some sanity in Washington, a long list of legislators has put forward compromises for an estate-tax bill, many of which will be passionately debated in Congress in the weeks ahead. Meanwhile, President Obama made it clear this week that he opposed the Bush-era tax cuts for wealthy Americans. . . .
A raucous debate is coming
What seems likely is that in the weeks ahead there will be increasingly fervid debate over a number of compromise proposals supported by various interests. . . .
Whether a compromise can be reached is yet to be seen. And even then, it's unclear whether a new estate tax would be retroactive.
The chaos in Washington is like "a family get-together where everyone is talking at once and no one is listening," said Deborah L. Jacobs, author of "Estate Planning Smarts."
She doesn't expect any resolution to the estate-tax mess this year and predicts that the uncertainty will extend to 2011.
Recent Comments