Tis’ a Gift to Be Simple, Tis’ a Gift to Be Free: Simplify Your (tax) Life
By Nichole Westin, ASSET When people line up for hours to score the best deal on a television the size of a small car, after spending hours cross-referencing online sites, social media, and old fashioned newspaper inserts, one has to step back and wonder just how it became so complicated. Or how the economy came [...]
The Estate Tax in the 114th Congress
by: Jordan Silverman — ASSET WASHINGTON, D.C. – On March 25, the House Committee on Ways and Means conducted a markup session on eight bills, including the “Death Tax Repeal Act of 2015” (H.R. 1105) that was introduced by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX). The central focus on this markup session in particular was the estate [...]
Ground Hog Day: Repeating the Same Bad Policies
In the 1993 movie “Ground Hog Day” actor Bill Murray plays a weatherman doomed to keep repeating the same day over and over again: ground hog day. The President’s recommendation on the estate tax is like Ground Hog Day all over again. He wants to go back to 2009: 45% rate with a 3.5 million [...]
ASSET Bill Introduced in Congress: Big Win for Private Sector Jobs
by: Jordan Silverman — ASSET Last Thursday, December 11, 2014, the ASSET bill (H.R. 5872) was introduced into the House by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD). This news represents a significant victory for private businesses owners, ranchers and farmers, and the millions of Americans still struggling to find work. The ASSET bill signifies the beginning of a [...]
ASSET Continues to Push for Estate Tax Reform on the State Level
by: Jordan Silverman — ASSET Legislators in New Jersey are frantically moving to save jobs in their state by attempting to raise the threshold for the state estate tax, or simply by eliminating it all together. New Jersey is burdened with the lowest estate tax threshold of any state in the U.S. at $675,000 and [...]
What’s New with the Estate Tax?
by: Jordan Silverman — ASSET The estate tax has amassed an increasing amount of media attention lately. This, in large part, is due to the deaths of celebrities such as Joan Rivers and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, both of whom had amassed multimillion dollar estates that are now subject to the tax. In non-celebrity news, the [...]
‘Death’ Tax Forces Family to Sell 130 Year Old Farm
by: Jordan Silverman – ASSET The McBride family had owned a twelve acre farm in the rural area of Issaquah, located just twenty minutes outside of Seattle, WA, since 1883. That is, until they were forced to sell their family farm due to the impending, overwhelming estate tax burden they would have faced had the [...]
The Habit of Thinking…
by: Rob Smith- ASSET I am always impressed when I find a quote from one of our founding fathers that I haven’t heard before. President George Washington’s farewell address on September 19, 1796 is rich with lessons for today’s lawmakers and citizens collectively. As we prepare to celebrate our Independence Day, the following quote stays [...]
High Schooler With An Estate Tax Problem?
By: Samantha H. Imagine you’re entering your junior year of high school, when everything changes. Your parents are employed by a private business, whose owner unexpectedly passes away leaving the company in turmoil. Unfortunately for the company, the owner had not planned for the estate tax so his heirs are left to pay a huge [...]
Rich People Get Hit with Estate Tax…Not Middle Class: Wrong Again
Anyone who is middle class and trying to make it economically doesn’t want to hear about tax issues, unless Congress is looking to reduce our tax burden so we can keep more money for our own families. As soon as you bring up words like “estate tax,” eyes glaze over and we lose interest because [...]