Estate Tax Repeal?

Estate Tax Repeal?

Repealing the death tax has been something that many in agriculture have worked legislatively to achieve. CliftonAllenLarson principle and Farm CPA Today blogger Paul Neiffer says when it comes to the estate tax.

Neiffer: "There has been a lot of chatter about repealing the estate tax. Trump and the Republicans in the House and the Senate want to do it. There are several issues that still have to be addressed. The Republicans in the Senate do not have the 60 votes to overcome a filibuster or any resistance by the Democrats. So if we do have a repeal of the estate tax likely it will only be for 10 years and then it would go back to what it is right now. To some degree, we might want to be careful what we wish for ... because there is a lot of talk about replacing the estate tax with a capital gains tax at death which would be similar to what is done in Canada. Or if your estate is large enough, your heirs may not get a step up basis on your assets when you pass away. So in that case, if and when they sold the assets later on they would owe capital gains tax at that point. I think getting rid of the estate tax would be great but if we are going to replace it with either a capital gains or no step up in basis — I think that I'd almost rather keep the estate tax the way it is now because for 98 percent of our farmers they don't owe estate tax now."

Farm CPA Today is one of my favorite informative blogs, if you haven't yet visited it, go to Farm CPA today.com.

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