Death Tax Permanency Repeal Act

Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Farmers are becoming a rare commodity in their own right and according to NCBA Manager of Legislative Affairs Kent Bacus, the estate tax, commonly referred to as the death tax, is one of the leading causes of the breakup of multi-generation family farms and ranches.

BACUS: Last year at this time we were all breathing a sigh of relief because had Congress failed to act the estate tax would have reverted back to the $1-million dollar exemption level at a tax rate of 55%. Instead they included a short-term extension for 2 years in a tax package that included tax relief and among that was they raised the estate tax exemption to $5-million dollars per individual; $10-million per couple at a tax rate of 35%. We are definitely looking forward to seeing some movement this year in both the House and the Senate. There’s been a lot of discussion lately about having some comprehensive tax reform. Now whether or not that is going to happen this spring or summer is anyones guess but there’s definitely a growing concern among the agriculture community and especially the business community that we need permanency in our tax code and that’s what we’re going to be looking for.

Bacus says it’s really important that there be a permanent repeal of this tax.

BACUS: The thing we’re going to try the hardest to do is get some permanency in the tax code. There is a lot of support in the House right now for some legislation introduced by Congressman Kevin Brady that’s called the Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act. There are 193 co-sponsors on that legislation and while that is a very strong message they still have to get enough support in the House and especially in the Senate to do that. I don’t know with this being an election year, you know politics plays very strongly so the likelihood of that happening is yet to be decided. But I think some possible outcomes we could see - like I said some comprehensive tax reforms could move forward or possibly just a current extension of the tax code asa it is. Obviously we’re going to work hard to repeal that estate tax and if that’s not possible then we would definitely look a reduction in the overall estate tax burden. So we definitely have a lot to work on this year, we definitely need our grass roots motivated and engaged because this affects everybody involved in the industry.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.