Frist Fails In Bid To Bring About Swift Passage Of Estate Tax Measure

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

30 June 2006

US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R – Tenn), has announced that the Senate will not vote on a permanent reduction of the estate tax before the Fourth of July recess as he had hoped.

Frist had been pushing for an early Senate vote on a House proposal to permanently reduce the death tax, after the Senate had earlier rejected a motion to debate a permanent repeal of the levy.

A bill drafted by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R - Calif), known as the Permanent Estate Tax Relief Act of 2006, would permanently eliminate the estate tax for 99.7 percent of all Americans by increasing the exemption amount to $5 million per person, taxing estates worth between $5 million and $25 million at a rate equal to the capital gains tax rate (currently 15%), and taxing estates worth over $25 million at a rate equal to double the capital gains rate.

The bill comfortably cleared the House in a vote last week, but there remains considerable doubt that the proposals will win the support of the 60 Senators needed for it to pass.

In a statement, Frist praised the "tremendous progress" made by the House towards achieving a permanent solution to the death tax, but he criticized consistent Democratic opposition to efforts to cut the tax.

"The vast majority of my Democratic colleagues have so far refused to address this issue; it’s my hope that their constituents will use the upcoming recess to explain the importance of supporting a reasonable and permanent solution to this unfair tax," he stated.

"Now it’s up to the Senate to decide whether it can improve upon the House bill or whether this is the bill that should be sent to the President for his signature," Frist announced.

Recommended