Pat Garofolo on Senator Blanche Lincoln:
Think Progress: Lincoln’s $250 billion estate tax plan would cut taxes for only 60 ’small businesses.’: Last week, 10 Democrats in the Senate joined all 41 Republicans in voting for a $250 billion proposal to cut estate taxes, designed by Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ). More than 99 percent of this cost would go to the inheritors of estates worth over $7 million. Touting the tax cut in a press release, Lincoln claimed that it was “aimed at farms and small businesses.” However, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, Lincoln’s $250 billion proposal would save just 60 small businesses or farms from the estate tax:
An always charged issue is how the estate tax affects small farms and family-owned businesses. We estimate that under the Obama proposal, 100 family farms and businesses [a year] would owe tax.... The Lincoln-Kyl proposal would cut the number to 40.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, “almost all such estates are able to pay the tax bill without having to sell business assets.”
