United for a Fair Economy and Public Citizen released a report today called "Spending Millions to Save Billions: The Campaign of the Super Wealthy to Kill the Estate Tax." The report details the multimillion-dollar lobbying effort -- led by a handful of extremely wealthy families -- to repeal the estate tax. The groups issued a press release as well, saying:

"This report exposes one of the biggest con jobs in recent history," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. "This long-running, secretive campaign funded by some of the country’s wealthiest families has relied on deception to bamboozle the public not only about who must pay the estate tax, but about how repealing it will affect the country."

The National Council of La Raza has issued a white paper concluding "that repeal of the estate tax would exacerbate the wealth gap between Latinos and other Americans and reduce the amount of revenue available for the community’s key policy priorities."

Report: Undercutting the American Dream: Estate Tax Repeal Would Harm Latinos

Executive Summary

Check out this good opinion article on the estate tax. It mentions that not only does the estate tax affect a miniscule percentage of Americans, but it is also an important tool for redistributing wealth and leveling the playing field in our society. In his column Jim Kiser refers to a point made by Bill Gates, Sr., an extremely wealthy man and an outspoken proponent of the estate tax:

Gates Sr. argues that the tax is a "due bill," a tax that causes those who had the good fortune to accumulate immense wealth to pay back the society that made their success possible with its infrastructure, legal order, stable markets and government-financed research and technology.... Gates argued that it is "people of enormous wealth" who are trying "to get rid of this tax, which they regard as, you know, as a burden they just don't want to pay."

Changing the Estate Tax Draws Rich Opposition

As we've said time and again, one of the main reasons why the Bush tax cuts are so egregious -- besides the fact that they are draining the Treasury of revenues and causing important federal programs to get squeezed -- is the that the beneficiaries of these tax cuts are overwhelmingly the very richest people in our society. As this well-written article puts it, "things will get even worse if the Bush administration gets its way. That’s because one key part of the Bush administration’s tax cuts--eliminating the estate tax--hasn’t gone into effect yet." This is an excellent point; estate tax repeal would only further slant tax cut benefits towards the wealthiest.

The article includes a number of other great points and facts on taxes; I've included a few of them below.

• Those in the top 1 percent income bracket are expected to get an average tax cut of $39,000 in 2006--or 52 times more than households at the middle of the income ladder. Those with incomes over $1 million will receive an average tax cut of more than $111,000.
  
• Because of lowered tax rates on investment income, taxpayers with annual incomes more than $10 million paid about the same share of their income in income taxes as those making $200,000 to $500,000.
  
• The 181,000 Americans with annual incomes of $1 million or more--about one-tenth of 1 percent of all taxpayers--reaped 43 percent of all the savings on investment taxes in 2003, about $41,400 per person.
  
• In contrast, the 71 percent of tax filers with incomes less than $50,000 saved $10 each from the capital gains and dividend tax cuts, adding only 2 percent to their $425 average tax reduction in 2003.

Check out this Responsible Weath release which says that even more people now prefer keeping or reforming the estate tax, as opposed to repealing it. The release says:

As the Senate prepares for a May vote on estate tax repeal, increased budget deficits and a more educated public are spurring greater numbers to join a movement begun by some of America's millionaires in 2001 to keep the federal estate tax. A new national poll shows that 57% prefer keeping the tax as is or reforming it. Only 23% favor repealing the tax. The number favoring preservation or reform rises to 68% when respondents learn more information about the estate tax, with 23% again favoring repeal.