Americans Standing for the Simplification of the Estate Tax (ASSET) announces a “Countdown to Chaos” as we stand just 180 days before the fiscal cliff when the estate tax increases exponentially.
“There are 180 days left, reminding me of 180 degree u-turns. It is time for Congress to come together and start over when it comes to how we collect the Estate Tax” said Jack Fitzgerald, chairman of ASSET. “We are 180 days from the fiscal cliff, including a 57% increase in the estate tax. There has to be a better way, and ASSET offers Congress a way forward.”
ASSET has been meeting for the last eighteen months with lawmakers and staff to consider a permanent solution to reform the estate tax collection method in a pro growth, equitable, revenue-neutral and bipartisan manner that could once and for all remove this carbuncle from the tax code.
The current estate tax is bad tax policy: it is complicated, inefficient, unfair and damaging to the national economy. It consistently generates only 1.1% of total IRS revenues, while it imposes costs that vastly exceed the actual proceeds to the federal Treasury. We need a 180 degree turn, not a 180 day countdown to chaos.
The ASSET proposal attempts to simplify the estate tax by changing the collection mechanism for the same population that would pay tax on their previously untaxed accumulated value in assets. This proposal depends on a temporary “bridge” to maintain revenue neutrality for the first few years and then eliminating the need for the bridge mechanism through a revenue windfall from capital gains taxes on these estate assets when, and only when, they are sold.
Email or call your Senator and Representative now to ask them to consider the ASSET approach and move us forward with the a change in the estate tax collection method.
ASSET is a coalition of private businesses, family farms and ranches founded in order to change the collection method for the Estate Tax, ensuring that the most successful taxpayers pay their fair share but in a far less distortive manner.
