Pennsylvania Lawmaker Urges Repeal of Estate Tax

I respectfully request Congress to pass, and the President to sign, a permanent repeal of the death tax in 2005.

Taxpayers scored a major victory in 2001 when Congress passed a phased-in elimination of the dreaded tax, culminating in 2010. Unfortunately, due to arcane Senate rules, the destructive death tax will be reinstated in 2011 unless Congress takes further action.

I commend President Bush for making death tax repeal a central component of his economic agenda. The President ran on death tax repeal in 2000, and was its greatest advocate in 2001. He ran again on the death tax, in 2004, promising to deliver permanent repeal. His convincing win at the ballot box confirms what polls have shown for years -- death tax repeal commands large bipartisan majorities of support.

The death tax is one of the most damaging taxes on the federal books. Family farmers and other small business owners face losing their farms and businesses when the federal government heavily taxes its citizens at death. Employees suffer layoffs when small and medium-sized businesses are liquidated to pay death taxes. It is a tax that is particularly damaging to families who are working their way up the ladder and trying to accumulate wealth for the first time.

Studies have shown that if the death tax had been repealed in 1996, the United States economy would have realized billions of dollars each year in extra output and an average of 145,000 additional new jobs would have been created each year. And having repeatedly passed in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, repeal of the death tax holds wide bipartisan support.

I urge you to keep death tax repeal at the top of your legislative agenda, and to pass permanent repeal this year. The, issue is too important to delay.