President-elect Donald Trump campaigned hard on the ways in which he was going to help the middle class. But it’s the 0.2 percent of the country that pay the estate tax who are counting on him to get done what others could not: kill the “death tax.”
Under federal law, the tax, which is levied at a 40 percent rate, applies only to estates worth more than $5.45 million for individuals and $10.9 million for couples. Estates worth less than that may be passed on to heirs tax-free. Last year, just 0.2 percent of estates of people who died were subject to the tax, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington-based research group that’s a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.
But, by eliminating the tax, many of those who’ve been nominated to serve in Trump’s cabinet, not to mention the president-elect himself, would be able to pass hundreds of millions, and in some cases billions of dollars, on to their estates, free of tax.
Since Trump’s election, House Ways & Means Chairman Kevin Brady and Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch have repeated their desire to repeal the estate tax. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have long supported its elimination. Passage in the Republican-led House is assured. In the Senate, a decade-long estate tax repeal can pass with 50 of 52 expected GOP senators under a special mechanism called reconciliation, while 60 votes could end it for good.
So, Dear Middle Class, you keep waiting for Trump to help you out, first on the list though will be his buddies in the administration.