You wrote: "Estate taxes serve a valuable purpose in keeping land
> ownership available to all citizens."

I am so sorry but this statement makes no sense whatsoever. Unless you mean
(and I don't think you do) that estate taxes, by removing a large parcel of
land from the farmer who owns it (and, by the way, already has paid serious
real estate taxes on it for decades) and dividing it up into many smaller
parcels (called a subdivision) and putting lots of houses and 7-11s and auto
parts stores and video stores on the farmer's land is "keeping ownership
available to all citizens".....I cannot figure out what you are trying to
say.  In this day and age, the main argument in favor of the death tax is
something about it being "unfair" for the children and grandchildren of
someone to "get something for nothing"......even if, in the case of a
business or a farm, the heirs have worked hard and contributed to the growth
of that enterprise.
Historically, the reasoning behind the death tax was to break up vast,
gigantic, monolithic blocks of wealth like the Rockefellers, Gettys, et al.
It has turned into something quite different now. Nowadays it is, simply,
class warfare (ha ha. tell that to a farmer) and redistribution of land and
resources which is the aim of all good socialists
I doubt that the estate tax will ever be repealed. It came close to being
repealed in recent years.......once, under Clinton, the Republican
controlled House & Senate voted to repeal it but good old Clinton vetoed it.
Again, it almost made it when the House voted to repeal it but the northeast
bloc of liberal Republican senators defeated it in the Senate. Bush has said
that he is in favor of repealing it. With the democrats in control now,
believe me, it will never be repealed. Think about that the next time you
see a lovely old farm bite the dust and get replaced with tract homes and
ugly, treeless streets.

>
> Anne
>
> Anne Pemberton
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> http://www.erols.com/stevepem
> http://www.erols.com/apembert
> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
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